LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


Class 


ESSAYS  IN   MODERN   THEOLOGY 
AND   RELATED   SUBJECTS 


PAPERS  IN   HONOUR  OF 

CHARLES   AUGUSTUS   BRIGGS 
JANUARY  15,  1911 


ESSAYS  IN   MODERN  THEOLOGY 
AND  RELATED  SUBJECTS 

GATHERED    AND    PUBLISHED    AS    A    TESTIMONIAL 
TO 

CHARLES  AUGUSTUS  BRIGaS,  D.D.,  D.LITT. 

GRADUATE   PROFESSOR  OF  THEOLOGICAL   ENCYCLOPEDIA    AtlD    SYMBOLICS  IN 
THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY  IN   THE   CITY   OF  NEW   YORK 

ON  THE   COMPLETION  OF   HIS  SEVENTIETH  TEAR 

JANUARY  15,  1911 

BY  A  FEW  OF   HIS  PUPILS,  COLLEAGUES  AND   FRIENDS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1911 


u  7 


CoPTRiaHT,   1911,   BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


lam  wizn  ^«n 
ID  noin^  Kin  po 


216024 


*fl  ^ado^  TrkovTov  teal  (To^ia<s  kuI  yv(ll>aeco<i 
Oeov'  ft)?  dve^epavvTjra  ra  Kpifiara  avrov  Kat, 
dve^fX^viaaroL  at  68ol  avrov. 

on  ef  avrov  kuI  St  avrov  Kal  et?  avrov  ra 
irdvra  •  avrat  rj  Bo^a  et?  rois  aiwva^  •  dfi-qv. 


PREFACE 

This  volume  is  offered  to  Professor  Charles  Augustus  Briggs 
by  a  little  group  of  his  pupils  and  colleagues,  with  the  addition  of 
only  two  or  three  other  close  friends.  It  is  a  testimonial  of  their 
personal  affection,  as  well  as  of  their  sense  of  obligation  to  the 
veteran  scholar  and  teacher,  and  they  have  chosen  as  its  occasion 
his  completion  of  seventy  years  of  life,  not  because  they  do  not 
hope  for  him  many  more  years  of  fruitful  work,  but  because  this 
anniversary  recalls  to  them  his  long  and  notable  service,  and  re- 
minds them  afresh  of  all  they  owe  to  the  stimulus  of  his  untiring 
energy,  his  patient  research,  his  fearlessness  in  proclaiming  truth, 
his  warm  personal  sympathy  and  his  quick  response  to  every 
demand  made  upon  his  stores  of  knowledge  and  the  treasures — 
often  unsuspected — of  his  warm  and  valiant  heart.  They  are 
glad  that  he  should  have  now,  while  his  vigour  is  yet  unabated, 
this  attestation  of  their  regard. 

Professor  Briggs  has  been  so  versatile  in  his  own  work,  and  his 
intellectual  interests  have  been  so  many,  that  the  range  of  topic 
appropriate  to  this  volume  has  not  been  confined  to  a  single  de- 
partment of  theological  study,  nor  indeed  limited  at  all  to  the 
theological  disciplines  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  The  foun- 
dation of  his  varied  learning,  after  school-boy  days,  was  laid  more 
than  fifty  years  ago,  at  the  University  of  Virginia,  where  the  sys- 
tem of  regulated  liberty  in  the  choice  of  studies  and  of  high  exac- 
tion in  scholarly  standard  gave  room  to  his  eagerness  for  acqui- 
sition, and  a  noble  measure  to  his  estimates  of  attainment.  This 
theological  bent  was  developed  under  original  and  inspiring 
teachers,  at  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  and  the  University 

ix 


X  PREFACE 

of  Berlin,  but  his  mind  was  independent  by  nature,  and  he 
began,  from  persistent  impulse,  to  investigate  great  problems 
for  himself  in  many  fields  of  thought.  Only  paths  which  he  had 
trodden  with  his  own  feet  brought  him  to  satisfying  conclusions. 
At  the  same  time  he  maintained  the  respect  for  the  past,  and  the 
reverence  for  truth  vindicated  long  ago,  with  which,  as  one  of 
the  guiding  principles  in  study,  he  had  entered  upon  the  student's 
career.  His  sense  of  historic  continuity  in  the  life  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  has  always  been  strong.  His  controlling  interest 
has  never  been  that  of  a  radical,  in  the  sense  of  an  overturner, 
or  a  neologian  in  any  form.  Those  who  know  him  well  have 
wondered  that  any  should  imagine  so.  The  progress  he  has 
sought  has  always  been  in  the  nature  of  a  growth  from  the  long- 
established,  and  no  small  part  of  the  sharp  controversy  which 
has  marked  his  life  has  been  due  to  his  ardent  desire  to  go  back 
to  fundamental  principles  of  theological  discussion  and  religious 
life  from  which  it  appeared  to  him  that  the  men  of  his  own  and 
other  recent  times  had  largely  and  often  unconsciously  departed. 

His  Biblical  scholarship  is  perhaps  most  familiar  to  the 
public,  and  has  been  fundamental  in  his  own  thought.  But  in 
Church  History  and  in  Dogmatics  he  is  also  at  home,  and  no 
one  has  considered  with  more  alertness  of  interest  the  practical 
problems  of  the  Church  and  the  religious  life.  If  this  were  a 
biographical  sketch — and  long  may  it  be  before  such  a  sketch 
can  be  completely  written! — these  sentences  could  be  expanded 
into  paragraphs  and  chapters.  It  would  be  wrong,  even  within 
the  present  limits,  not  to  make  especial  mention  of  the  irenic 
studies  of  his  later  years,  and  his  steadfast  outlook  toward  the 
union  of  Christians  in  things  essential  and  a  great  charity  in  all 
things  else. 

It  is  a  large,  strong  man  that  has  been  engaged  in  these  various 
lines  of  thought  and  struggle, — various,  yet  all  related  and  con- 
verging,— and  his  influence  has  been  wide,  and  his  colleagues 


PREFACE  XI 

pay  him  high  regard,  and  his  pupils  feel  his  power,  and  his 
friends  love  him.  One  of  the  elders  among  us,  who  has  been 
long  his  fellow-teacher,  the  Rev.  Thomas  S.  Hastings,  D.D., 
LL.D. — Professor  here  since  1881,  and  President  of  the  Faculty 
from  1887  to  1897 — has  uttered  more  than  his  own  feelings  in 
the  following  tribute: 

"  It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  express  my  warm  and  high 
appreciation  of  my  colleague  and  friend.  Dr.  C.  A.  Briggs.  It 
is  often  said  that  those  who  have  worked  together  know  each 
other;  still  more  do  they  know  each  other  who  have  suffered 
together.  I  have  learned  by  such  experience  to  admire  and  to 
love  Dr.  Briggs  for  his  frankness  and  fidelity  as  a  friend,  while  I 
have  been  surprised  again  and  again  to  see  how  versatile  he  is 
and  how  comprehensive  is  his  learning.  He  has  gone  from  one 
department  to  another  in  our  curriculum,  equally  at  home  and 
masterful  in  each.  I  have  found  him  always  calm  and  patient 
under  assault  and  misrepresentation,  cherishing  no  ill  feeling  or 
resentment.  Indeed,  I  have  been  deeply  impressed  by  the  gentle 
sweetness  of  his  spirit  even  under  provocation.  He  is  strong  and 
brave  and  tender  and  true.  I  have  met  very  few  who  have  so 
deep  a  reverence  for  the  Scriptures  and  absolutely  no  one  who 
holds  more  fully,  more  simply,  and  more  heartily  to  the  stand- 
ards of  our  Church.  I  shall  always  cherish  him  within  the 
inner  circle  of  my  loving  friendships." 

Many  of  Dr.  Briggs'  students  have  taken  responsible  positions 
as  instructors  and  productive  scholars.  Only  a  part  of  them 
have  been  able  to  contribute  to  this  book.  Imperative  circum- 
stances have  hindered  some  who  had  the  right  to  appear  in  it, 
and  who  regret,  as  we  do,  the  absence  of  their  names. 

If  the  plan  of  the  publication  had  admitted  enlargement 
beyond  the  closer  circle,  and  especially  if  we  had  ventured  over- 
seas, the  result  would  have  been  several  volumes  instead  of  one. 
With  reluctance  we  abandoned  the  idea  of  so  unwieldy  an  enter- 
prise.    This  simple  testimonial  is  less  imposing,  but  it  is  at  least 


xii  PREFACE 

serious  in  intention  and  sincere  in  spirit,  and  it  bears  with  it  an 
affectionate  regard  not  to  be  measured  in  pages,  or  expressed  at 
all  in  words. 

Especial  thanks  are  due  to  the  publishers,  Messrs.  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  who  have  generously  undertaken  to  issue  the 
volume  in  recognition  of  an  esteemed  author  and  a  valued 
friend. 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 

New  York,  January  1,  1911. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


PREFACE       ix 

I.    POLYTHEISM  IN  GENESIS  AS  A  MARK  OF 

DATE 1 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Crawford  Howell  Toy, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  Harvard  University. 

II.    THE    MEANING    OF    HEBREW    BITHRON, 

2  SAM.  2-^ 13 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  William  R.  Arnold,  Ph.D., 
Andover  Theological  Seminary,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
OJ.  T.  S.,  1895). 

III.  EXEGETICAL  NOTES  ON  JEREMIAH  ...      23 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Julius  August  Bewer, 
Ph.D.,  Union  Theological  Seminary  (U.  T.  S.,  1898). 

IV.  THE  RETURN  OF  THE  JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS      33 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Edward  Lewis  Curtis, 
Ph.D.,  D.D.,  Yale  Divinity  School  (U.  T.  S.,  1879). 

V.    THE  SONS  OF  KORAH 41 

By  the  Rev.  John  Punnett  Peters,  Ph.D.,  D.D., 
Sc.D.,  St.  Michael's  Church,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

VI.    THE  ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS 49 

By  Professor  Kemper  Fullerton,  Oberlin  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  Ohio  (U.  T.  S.,  1891). 
xiii 


XIV  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VII.    THE    DECLINE    OF    PROPHECY 65 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Francis  Brown,  Ph.D.,  D.D., 
D.Litt.,  LL.D.,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New 
York  (U.  T.  S.,  1877). 

VIII.    MAN  AND  THE  IMESSIANIC   HOPE  ....      Sa 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Thomas  Franklin  Day,  D.D., 

San  Francisco  Theological  Seminary,  California 
(U.  T.  S.,  1880). 

IX.    NOTES    ON  TWO    PASSAGES  IN  THE  OLD 

TESTAMENT    APOCRYPHA 9a 

By  Professor  A.  V.  Williams  Jackson,  Ph.D., 
LL.D.,  Columbia  University. 

X.  THE  DEFINITION  OF  THE  JEWISH  CANON 
AND  THE  REPUDIATION  OF  CHRIS- 
TIAN SCRIPTURES 99 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  George  Foot  Moore,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  Harvard  University  (U.  T.  S.,  1877). 

XL    THE   GREEK  AND  THE  HITTITE  GODS      .     127 

By  the  Rev.  William  Hayes  Ward,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
New  York  City. 

XII.    BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 141 

By  the  Rev.  Stephen  Herbert  Langdon,  Ph.D., 
INI.A.  (Hon.,  Oxon.), Oxford  University,  England 
(U.  T.  S.,  1903). 

XIII.  SOME  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  COM- 
MON ARABIC  SPEECH  OF  SYRIA  AND 
PALESTINE 16a 

By  Frederick  Jones  Bliss,  Ph.D.,  Beirut,  Syria 
(U.  T.  S.,  1887). 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGE 

XIV.  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  IN  THE  DOUBLE 
TRADITION  OF  MATTHEW  AND 
LUKE 173 

By  the  Rev.  George  Holley  Gilbert,  Ph.D., 
D.D.,  Northampton,  Mass.  (U.  T.  S.,  1883). 

XV.    THE    INTEGRITY    OF    SECOND    CORIN- 
THIANS     185 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Marvin  Richardson  Vin- 
cent, D.D.,  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

XVI.     Oi  "ATAKTOI,  1  THESS.  5" 191 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  James  Everett  Frame,  M.A., 
Union  Theological  Seminary  (U.  T.  S.,  1895). 

XVII.    CALVIN'S  THEORY  OF  THE  CHURCH     .    .     207 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Arthur  Cushman  McGif- 
fert,  Ph.D.,   D.D.,  Union  Theological  Seminary 

(U.  T.  S.,  1885). 

XVIII.    THE  REPRESSION  OF  SCIENTIFIC  INQUIRY 

IN  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH     ....    227 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  John  Winthrop  Platner, 
D.D.,  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  Cambridge, 
Mass.  (U.  T.  S.,  1893). 

XIX.    THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMAND  FOR  UNITY:  ITS 

NATURE  AND  IMPLICATIONS      ...    243 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  William  Adams  Brown, 
D.D.,  Union  Theological  Seminary  (U.  T.  S.,  1890). 

XX.    A  DEFINITION  OF  MYSTICISM 261 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Thomas  Cuming  Hall,  D.D., 
Union  Theological  Seminary  (U.  T.  S.,  1882). 


XVI  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XXI.    ONE  LAW  OF  THE   INTERPRETATION  OF 

RELIGION 269 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Edward  Caldwell  Moore, 
Ph.D.,  D.D.,  Harvard  University  (U.  T.  S.,  1884). 

XXII.    THE  THEORY  OF  PLEASURE 289 

By  Professor  Harry  Norman  Gardiner,  A.M., 
Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass.  (U.  T.  S.,  1882). 

XXIII.  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 307 

By  Professor  Frederick  James  Eugene  Wood- 
bridge,  LL.D.,   Columbia  University   (U.  T.  S., 

1892). 

XXIV.  BIBLIOGRAPHY   CONTAINING   A   LIST   OF 

THE  PRINCIPAL  WRITINGS  OF  PRO- 
FESSOR BRIGGS 327 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Charles  Ripley  Gillett, 
D.D.,  L.H.D.,  Union  Theological  Seminary  (U.  T.  S., 
1880). 


ESSAYS   IN   MODERN  THEOLOGY 
AND   RELATED   SUBJECTS 


I 

POLYTHEISM  IN  GENESIS  AS  A  MARK  OF  DATE 

By  Crawford  H.  Toy 

In  the  Old  Testament,  omitting  Genesis,  the  denunciations 
of  polytheism  appear  to  be  all  directed  against  foreign  cults. 
Certain  passages  in  Amos  and  Hosea  may  refer  to  worship  at 
shrines  which,  though  nominally  devoted  to  Yahweh,  was,  in  the 
opinion  of  these  prophets,  really  treason  to  him;  *  and  it  may  be 
that  Deut.  6*  is  a  protest  against  a  popular  view  that  there  were 
many  Yahwehs  in  the  land.f  In  any  case  this  polyyahwism  was 
probably  regarded  by  the  prophets  as  not  essentially  different 
from  the  Canaanite  polybaalism,  as  in  fact  the  Yahweh  at  any 
place  was  simply  the  local  baal.  But  the  people  of  a  given  com- 
munity, in  worshipping  their  local  Yahweh,  were  not  conscious 
of  devotion  to  more  than  one  god — that  is,  polyyahwism  was  not 
exactly  polytheism.  J  The  historical  books,  however,  and  the 
prophets  of  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries  definitely  charge  the 
people  with  polytheistic  practices,  Later  books,  secure  in  the 
conviction  of  Yahweh's  supremacy,  ridicule  idolatry  and  calmly 
relegate  foreign  gods  to  a  subordinate  place  in  the  world. §  The 
probability  appears  to  be  that  down  to  the  latter  part  of  the  sixth 
century,  and  perhaps  after  this,  the  Israelites  worshipped  foreign 
deities  whenever  they  came  into  close  contact  with  them;  and 
there  is  nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  doubt  as  to  the  real 
existence  of  such  deities. ||  The  teraphim,  apparently  native 
Israelite,  form  a  class  by  themselves. 

*  Am.  8'';  Hos.  5«,  8"". 

fCf.  W.  F.  Bade,  Der  Monojahwismus  d.  Dexd., in  Zeitschr.  alttest.  Wiss.,  1910. 
X  Cf.  the  various  shrines  and  titles  of  Zeus  and  Jupiter  and  other  deities. 
§  la.  40,  44;  Ps.  96^ '  ',  97^  115;  cf.  Briggs,  Psalms. 

\\  The  "not-God"  of  Deut.  32",  Jer.  5',  al.  means  simply  relative  impotence; 
cf.  Hos.  1^ 

1 


2  POLYTHEISM  IN  GENESIS 

But,  while  thus  there  seems  to  be  no  recognition  of  native 
polytheistic  practices  (except  that  every  family  or  clan  had  its 
teraphim)  in  the  books  referred  to  above,  it  has  been  supposed 
that  Genesis  assumes  a  native  polytheistic  system  which,  as 
antedating  Yahwism,  indicates  a  date  for  the  composition  of 
this  book.  It  is  generally  held  that  Genesis  contains  early 
material,  traditions,  and  ideas  going  back  of  the  time  of  David, 
and  possibly,  in  some  instances,  back  of  the  settlement  of  the 
tribes  in  Canaan.  The  question  of  the  historical  value  of  the 
traditions  must  be  kept  distinct  from  the  question  when  our 
Genesis  was  put  into  shape.  The  two  questions  doubtless  are 
closely  connected  with  each  other:  one's  estimate  of  the  historical 
worth  of  the  stories  of  Abraham  and  Jacob  will  be  affected  by  his 
opinion  as  to  the  date  of  these  stories  in  their  present  form. 
Still,  the  two  questions  may  be  kept  apart — or  rather,  so  far  as 
polytheism  is  concerned,  we  may  ask  whether  or  how  far  its 
occurrence  in  Genesis  reveals  a  stratum  of  religious  thought 
different  from  and  cruder  than  that  which  appears  in  clearly 
historical  times.  For  convenience  the  various  supposed  poly- 
theistic statements  and  expressions  may  be  considered  under 
different  heads. 

1.  The  plural  predicates  found  in  connection  with  Elohim  in 
6'^  18'-  ^  20'^  3P^  35^  hardly  throw  light  on  the  question  under 
discussion.  The  great  majority  of  Septuagint  MSS.*  and  of  the 
other  ancient  versions  ignore  the  plural  form  in  these  passages; 
this  fact,  however,  is  not  important,  for  monotheistic  translators 
would  naturally  interpret  such  statements  monotheistically.  It 
is  more  to  the  point  that  the  pilural  form  is  ignored  in  the  Hebrew 
context.  In  6^^  the  DflTI^'D  may  be  read  as  plural  participle,  the 
preceding  '»iin  being  changed  to  liiPI,  and  then  the  flood  will 
have  been  sent  by  the  "  gods."  But  with  this  reading  the  varia- 
tion of  numbers  becomes  strange:  "Elohim  said.  The  end  of 
all  flesh  is  come  before  me  ...  we  are  about  to  destroy.  ...  I 
am  about  to  bring  the  flood  ...  I  will  establish  my  covenant." 
It  seems  more  probable  that  the  writer  intended  the  participle 
in  V.  "  to  be  taken  as  singular.  The  following  pKH  HK  then 
makes  a  diflBculty;  the  nx  may  be  understood  as  preposition  (so 
Sept.  and  most  moderns),  but  the  statement  that  man  is  to 
*  See  the  Cambridge  text  of  Brooke  and  McLean. 


POLYTHEISM  IN  GENESIS  6 

be  destroyed  "with"  the  earth  does  not  suit  the  general  line  of 
thought  of  the  paragraph,  in  which  not  the  earth  in  itself  but 
man  is  the  offending  thing.*  Comparison  with  vv.  ^^-  '  suggests 
the  reading  ^j;d  instead  of  nS  (so  Olshausen) — man  is  to  be  de- 
stroyed from  off  the  earth;  the  emendation  requires  a  not  too 
violent  change.f  However  the  text  may  be  dealt  with,  it  does  not 
appear  that  we  are  warranted  in  seeing  in  it  a  polytheistic  con- 
ception. 

In  18^'  ^  the  three  men,  Abraham's  visitors,  appear  to  speak  as 
if  they  were  equals  in  dignity:  together  they  accept  or  permit 
his  hospitality:  "  they  said,  so  do."  This  is  not  unnatural,  since 
all  three  are  guests;  but  in  v.  *  the  three  call  for  Sarah  with  a 
tone  of  authority:  "  they  said,  AVhere  is  Sarah  thy  wife  ? "  This 
association  of  the  two  with  the  one  will  be  considered  below 
(under  division  4) — here  only  a  word  respecting  the  plural  form 
of  the  verb.  Again  the  contextual  use  suggests  doubt:  "they 
said.  Where  is  Sarah  ?  .  .  .  and  he  said,  I  will  return."  While, 
as  will  be  pointed  out  below,  the  use  of  plurals  in  the  narrative 
is  intelligible,  in  this  particular  instance  there  seems  to  be  no 
propriety  in  the  variation  of  number  except  on  the  supposition 
of  a  monotheistic  revision  of  the  text.  A  scribal  slip  of  the 
pen  is  possible.  Codex  A  of  Sept.  has  the  singular  in  v.  ^-  ^, 
but  in  V.  ^  not  a  few  cursives  and  a  couple  of  uncials  have  the 
plural. 

In  20^^  Abraham  says  to  Abimelek:  "when  Elohim  caused  me 
to  wander"  (ipnn);  the  versions  have  the  divine  name  and  the 
verb  singular,  and  elsewhere  in  the  chapter  the  Hebrew  has 
singular  verbs  with  Elohim.  The  plural  in  v.^^  seems  to  be  a 
scribal  slip;  it  is  hardly  due  to  the  fact  that  Abraham  is  speaking 
to  a  polytheist  (Dillmann),  for  in  that  case  he  would  more  prob- 
ably have  used  the  article  with  Elohim:  "the  gods,"  etc.;  nor 
does  it  seem  likely  that  the  plural  is  employed  to  secure  agree- 
ment between  the  subject  and  the  verb — we  should  not  look  for 
such  grammatical  nicety  in  a  scribe,  and  besides,  if  here,  why 
not  frequently  elsewhere?  In  35^  the  article  is  prefixed  to 
Elohim  and  the  verb  is  plural;  but  this  passage  will  be  considered. 

*  "Earth"  is  here  the  world  as  a  mass  of  hiiraan  beings,  =  "mankind." 
t  The  D  may  have  fallen  out  from  preceding  a;  s  and  ;•  are  often  interchanged;; 
h  and  n  are  not  very  different.     An  emendation  to  p  is  less  probable. 


4  POLYTHEISM   IN   GENESIS 

below.  In  the  other  cases  mentioned  above  it  appears,  for  the 
reasons  given,  improbable  that  polytheistic  statements  are  in- 
tended. The  supposition  of  scribal  error  is  supported  by  the 
occurrence  of  a  plural  verb  in  Ps.  58^^  ^^^\  where  there  is  nothing 
in  the  rest  of  the  psalm  to  suggest  that  the  writer  had  in  mind  a 
plurality  of  gods.  In  oV^  the  plural  verb  is  justified  by  the  fact 
that  two  deities,  the  god  of  Abraham  and  the  god  of  Nahor,  are 
mentioned;  the  conception  may  be  polytheistic — it  is  not  clear 
from  Genesis  what  Nahor's  cult  was.  Several  cases  of  plural 
predicates,  besides  that  of  Ps.  58,  occur  outside  of  Genesis, 
particularly  in  Deuteronomic  diction,  Deut.  5'^  ^-^\  1  Sam.  17^*-  ^^ 
Jer.  10^^  23^^  Josh.  24^^  and  so  perhaps  2  Sam.  7^^;  *  the  use  of 
such  forms  is  not  in  itself  a  sign  of  early  date.f 

2.  In  regard  to  the  form  DTI^Nn  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  it  is 
used  in  Genesis  alongside  of  the  anarthrous  form  apparently  at 
random;  see  20«-  ",  27^«,  35^-  '■  ^  45^-  «,  48^^  and  for  ^NH  and 
DTi^S  46^.  The  arthrous  form  may  be  significant  in  certain 
connections — every  occurrence  must  be  examined  separately. 

3.  Other  gods  besides  Yahweh  are  mentioned  by  name  in 
Genesis:  El  Elyon  14^«--"- ";  El  Shaddai  17^;  Teraphim  31^»- '*; 
to  these  may  be  added  Gad  and  Asher  30"-  ^l  The  Teraphim 
in  this  case  are  the  gods  of  the  Aramean  Laban,  carried  off  by 
Rachel,  apparently  to  secure  the  protection  of  her  ancestral  house- 
hold divinities.  They  represent  a  very  early  cult,  found  now  in 
half-civilized  communities  (for  example,  in  Samoa,  and,  till 
lately,  in  Hawaii).  They  appear  to  be  recognized  as  deities  by 
Jacob,  though  no  such  cult  is  attributed  to  him. J  But,  as  they 
continued  to  be  worshipped  by  the  Israelites,  forming  a  recognized 
part  of  the  private  and  the  public  cults,  till  a  late  period  (I  Sam. 
19^^  Hos.  3*,  cf.  Zech.  10"),  the  reference  to  them  is  not  a  definite 
mark  of  date. 

Elyon  occurs  in  only  one  section  of  Genesis  and  there  as 
epithet  of  El.  The  name  is  found  alone  not  earlier  than  the 
seventh  century  (Num.  24^^  Deut.  32®),  and  all  its  occurrences 
but  the  two  just  mentioned  are  still  later.     That  the  Melkisedek 

*  Cf.  Ges.-Kautzsch,  §  124^-',  145'. 
t  Ex.  22'(*>  may  show  early  polytheism. 

X  The  putting  away  of  foreign  gods,  35",  belongs  to  a  late  stratum  of  the 
narrative. 


POLYTHEISM   IN   GENESIS  5 

story  is  very  late*  appears  from  the  use  of  the  late  poetic  name 
Salem  for  Jerusalem  (cf.  Ps.  76^  ^"^).  Elyon,  if  we  may  trust 
the  statement  of  Philo  of  Byblos  (Elioun)  was  an  ancient  Phoeni- 
cian deity,  and  not,  improbably,  therefore  old  Canaanitish  also. 
The  combination  El  Elyon  appears  to  represent  not  a  coalescence 
of  two  independent  divine  names,  but  rather,  as  is  suggested 
above,  a  reduction  of  the  second  name  to  an  epithet — a  natural 
procedure.  In  the  mind  of  the  Old  Testament  writers  El  Elyon 
(and  also  Elyon  alone)  is  identical  with  Yahweh. 

The  origin  and  meaning  of  the  name  Shaddai  (as  it  is  pointed 
in  the  Masoretic  text)  are  uncertain.f  In  Genesis  it  is  always 
attached  to  the  name  El:  17^  28^  35",  43",  48^  49=''  (read  bH  for 
ns).  It  is  found  in  the  Pentateuch  outside  of  Genesis  in  Num. 
244.  10^  £^  g3.  Q^]^Qj.  occurrences  are  of  the  sixth  century  or 
later.  The  obscure  poems  in  Num.  24  are  certainly  not  earlier 
than  the  regal  period,  and  v.  *^  appears  to  be  much  later  than 
this  period.  Gen.  49  appears  to  have  been  composed  in  the 
regal  period  (so  v.  ^°).  The  name  Shaddai  does  not  suggest  an 
early  date  or  a  polytheistic  point  of  view;  in  Ex.  6^  for  example, 
it  is  a  designation  of  Yahweh.  This  latter  passage  leads  us  to 
expect  a  more  frequent  use  of  the  name  in  Genesis  than  is  actu- 
ally the  case.  Yahweh  there  says  that  he  appeared  to  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob  under  the  name  El  Shaddai,  and  that  he  was 
not  known  to  them  by  his  name  Yahweh  (or,  as  the  Greek  has 
it,  did  not  make  his  name  Yahweh  known  to  them).  Yet 
Shaddai  occurs  only  once  in  the  history  of  Abraham  (17^),  once 
in  that  of  Isaac  (28^),  and  four  times  in  that  of  Jacob.  Possibly 
in  the  course  of  various  recensions  some  occurrences  of  the  name 
have  disappeared. 

Gad  and  Asher  are  divine  names,J  and  the  tribal  names  may 
have  been  derived  from  the  names  of  the  deities,  but  there  is  no 
consciousness  of  such  relation  in  Genesis;  the  popular  etymol- 
ogies in  ch.  30  proceed  in  a  different  direction.  The  deriva- 
tion in  question,  if  it  be  correct,  was  hardly  in  the  minds  of  the 

*  It  may  be  kept  apart  from  the  preceding  portion  of  ch.  14;  the  crit'cal 
considerations  in  the  two  sections  are  different. 

t  See  Driver,  Genesis,  E.xcurs.  I. 

X  For  Gad  see  Is.  65".  Asher  probably  appears  in  Phcen.  n'^c-itr'N.  Cf. 
Ass.  Ashur  (see  Jastrow,  Rel.  Bab.  Ass.,  Enghsh  and  German  editions). 


6  POLYTHEISM   IN   GENESIS 

Old  Testament  writers.  Worship  of  Gad  appears  only  very 
late  (Is.  65"). 

4.  The  deity  is  sometimes  associated  with  other  superhuman 
beings.  It  is  generally  recognized  that  in  Gen.  V^  Elohim,  an 
individual  figure,  takes  counsel  with  other  beings  respecting  the 
creation  of  man,  and  those  beings  are  necessarily  divine — they 
belong  to  the  Elohim  class  (the  B'ne  Elohim),  or,  what  amounts 
to  the  same  thing,  they  are  angels.  The  conception  here  is 
definitely  polytheistic,  but,  though  Gen.  1  may  contain  very  old 
ideas,  it  does  not  appear  that  this  particular  polytheistic  repre- 
sentation can  be  taken  to  point  to  an  early  date  for  the  chapter. 
Substantially  the  same  sort  of  conception  of  divine  beings  is 
found  in  the  Job  prologue,  where  these  Elohim  beings  are  asso- 
ciated with  Yahweh  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  and  one  of  them,  there  called  the  Adversary,  but  not  the 
less  a  trusted  agent  of  the  supreme  deity,  is  particularly  con- 
cerned with  human  life.  The  prologue  is  later  than  Zech.  3, 
and,  though  it  may  rest  on  a  popular  story,  it  must  embody  a 
conception  current  in  the  sixth  century  or  later.  If  a  divine 
lieutenant  of  Yahweh  could  deal  with  the  moral  development  of 
men,  similar  beings  might  have  a  part  in  the  original  creation  of 
the  race.  The  general  conception  of  creation  in  Gen.  1  is  a 
noble  one — it  belongs  to  a  period  of  reflection,*  not  to  a  crude  stage 
of  national  life.  The  polytheistic  tinge,  with  headship  for  Yah- 
weh, continues  late  in  the  history,  and  the  conception  in  3^^  11' 
would  in  all  probability  be  not  unnatural  for  an  intelligent  and 
pious  man  of  the  eighth  century.  The  same  thing  may  be  said 
of  the  picture  in  ch.  18 — precedence  for  Yahweh,  and  a  sub- 
stantially divine  role  for  his  two  companions.  If  it  be  supposed 
that  in  the  original  form  of  the  story  there  were  three  equal 
gods,  still  the  present  form  belongs  after  the  establishment  of 
the  primacy  of  Yahweh. 

Under  this  head  we  may  consider  the  serpent  of  Gen.  3.  The 
story  in  Gen.  2,  3  is  an  jetiological  myth — it  accounts  for  the  loss 
of  paradise  and  other  things.  Ch.  3  appears,  however,  to  be  com- 
posite;  there  is  the  story  of  the  temptation  and  the  story  of  the 

*  So  the  explanation  of  the  sacredness  of  the  Sabbath  is  superior  in  dignity 
to  that  given  elsewhere  in  the  Pentateuch;  omitting  national  experiences  and 
ritual  details,  it  bases  the  law  on  the  method  of  the  divine  creative  work. 


POLYTHEISM  IN  GENESIS  7 

curse.  In  the  latter  the  serpent  is  a  mere  beast,  in  the  former 
he  belongs  in  the  Elohim  circle,  he  knows  what  will  be  the  con- 
sequence for  the  human  pair  of  eating  the  forbidden  fruit.  So 
far  as  regards  the  conception  of  a  serpent  god  we  have  the  state- 
ment of  2  Kg.  18*  that  a  bronze  image  of  a  serpent  was  wor- 
shipped in  Jerusalem  down  to  the  end  of  the  eighth  century.* 
But  the  serpent  of  Genesis  is  apparently  hostile  to  Yahweh. 
The  element  of  hostility  may  be  an  echo  of  the  old  cosmogonic 
dragon  myth,  here  reduced  in  proportions  and  socialized:  the 
supreme  deity  has  become  the  owner  of  a  private  garden,  and  the 
serpent  god  is  a  plotter  in  anthropomorphic  style,  appealing  to 
the  woman  in  terms  of  human  logic;  such  humanizing  of  deities 
was  not  uncommon  in  the  ancient  world.  The  whole  story 
shows  interest  in  sociological  philosophy,  while  the  conception 
of  supernatural  agencies  is  not  out  of  keeping  with  the  ideas  of 
the  regal  period.f 

5.  A  certain  polytheistic  coloring  appears  in  passages  in  which 
Yahweh  or  Elohim  is  spoken  of  as  a  god  of  limited  relations, 
seeming  thus  to  be  one  of  many.  Yahweh  is  the  god  of  Shem 
(9-^)  or  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  (28^^) ;  J  Jacob  calls  him  "  the 
God  of  my  father"  (31^),  the  father  being  sometimes  Abra- 
ham, sometimes  Isaac  (in  3V^  the  "Fear  of  Isaac").  Laban 
invokes  the  God  of  Abraham  and  the  God  of  Nahor,  as  if  they 
were  different  deities  (31^^),  and  he  is  represented  as  being 
acquainted  with  Yahweh  by  name  (24^°);  throughout  ch.  24 
Abraham's  servant  styles  Yahweh  "the  God  of  my  master"; 
Elohim  in  a  vision  announces  himself  to  Jacob  as  "the  God 
of  thy  father"  (46'),  or  (in  Sept.)  "the  God  of  thy  fathers." 
In  33^°  we  should  read,  with  Septuagint,  "he  called  on  the 
God  of  Israel"  (an  altar  could  not  be  called,  as  the  Hebrew 
has  it.  El  Elohe  Israel).  The  larger  title  "the  God  of  heaven 
and  earth"  occurs  in  24'  (and  v.  ''  in  the  Greek).  Similarly 
Jacob  cites  Yahweh  as  calling  himself  the  God  of  Bethel  (3P'). 
More  definitely  a  deity  is  described  as  the  one  who  appeared  to 
a  man  at  a  certain  time:    "the  Elohim  who  appeared  to  thee" 

*  The  seraphim  of  Is.  6  perhaps  represent  original  serpent  gods  elevated  or 
subordinated  to  the  rank  of  attendants  on  Yahweh. 
t  Cf.  the  crude  ideas  in  1  Kg.  W\  2  Kg.  3'^  Is.  8'^ 
t  Omit,  with  Sept.,  the  second  Yahweh. 


8  POLYTHEISM  IN   GENESIS 

(35*),  "  the  Elohim  who  answered  me"  (35^);  Jacob  built  an  altar 
and  called  the  place  Bethel,*  because  there  the  Elohim  revealed 
themselves  (plural  verb),  apparently  with  reference  to  the  angels 
(ch.  28),  here  called  gods,  but  perhaps  the  plural  of  the  Hebrew 
is  scribal  error  (Sept.  has  singular). f  There  are,  further,  epithets: 
El  roi  (16*^),  perhaps  "the  god  who  is  seen"  (theophany)  and  El 
olam  (2V^)  "the  god  of  olden  times"  (the  god  handed  down  by 
tradition). 

These  designations  of  deities  reveal  an  atmosphere  of  poly- 
theistic thought.  Such  descriptions  are  found  abundantly  out- 
side of  Israel,  in  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Phoenicia,  Greece,  and 
Rome.  In  ancient  society  every  clan  was  an  independent  unit, 
and  had  its  own  god  or  gods,  and  any  place  in  which  a  deity  was 
supposed  to  reveal  himself  might  furnish  a  name  for  him.  A 
man  inherited  his  god  from  his  fathers,  and  cherished  him  as  a 
part  of  the  family  possessions;  and  he  valued  any  spot  where  he 
became  aware  of  a  divine  presence.  These  conceptions  survived 
outside  of  Israel  into  comparatively  enlightened  times — are  there 
traces  of  them  in  the  Old  Testament  in  the  historical  books  and 
other  records  of  opinion?  The  naturalness  of  the  titles  God 
of  Shem,  God  of  Israel,  is  obvious:  according  to  Deut.  32^^-, 
Yahweh,  having  divided  the  world  out  among  the  peoples,  chose 
Israel  as  his  portion,  thus  leaving  other  nations  to  other  gods; 
he  was  specifically  the  God  of  Israel,  and  hence,  in  the  later 
genealogical  construction,  the  God  of  the  ancestor  Shem,  who  is 
marked  off  from  other  early  ancestors.  The  value  of  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  fathers  is  expressed  in  Deut.  32".  The  nearer  great 
ancestor,  Abraham,  is  naturally  prominent — throughout  the  Old 
Testament  times  his  name  is  employed  to  describe  the  relation 
of  Yahweh  to  his  people:  so  in  Ex.  3^  Deut.  9",  1  Kg.  18'^ 
1  Ch.  29*«,  2  Ch.  30^  Ps.  47*»  ^'\  cf.  Is.  5P. 

Designations  of  a  deity  by  a  shrine  are  rare  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment; some  of  these  may  have  disappeared  in  the  course  of  the 
revision  of  the  text.  Am.  8**  speaks  of  the  gods  of  Samaria, 
Dan,  and  Beersheba,  and  Samaria  may  here  include  Bethel — 
cf.  Hos.  10^:    "for  the  calf  [so  Sept.]  of  Bethaven  [probably  = 

*  So  Sept.;  El  Bethel,  as  in  the  Hebrew,  is  an  impossible  name  for  a  place. 
t  In  27^'  '•  there  seems  no  ground  for  seeing  a  distinction  between  Yahweh 
who  blesses  a  field  and  Elohim  who  bestows  fatness. 


POLYTHEISM   IN   GENESIS  9 

Bethel]  the  inhabitants  of  Samaria  shall  tremble."  Bethel  is  the 
only  place  from  which  an  Elohim  is  named  in  Genesis.  It  was 
a  prominent  shrine  down  to  the  destruction  of  Samaria  (1  Sam. 
7^",  2  Kg.  2^^),  but  was  denounced  by  Amos  and  Hosea  as  hostile 
to  the  Yahweh  cult  (Am.  4*,  Hos.  4^'*) ;  after  the  fall  of  Samaria 
the  worship  of  Yahweh  was  resumed  at  Bethel  (2  Kg.  17^^),  but 
the  place,  according  to  2  Kg.  23^^  was  destroyed  by  Josiah — it 
reappears,  however,  in  Nehemiah's  time  (Neh.  7^^),  though,  natu- 
rally, it  is  not  then  spoken  of  as  a  shrine.  Down  to  the  middle 
of  the  eighth  century,  then,  it  was  esteemed  a  sacred  place,  and 
the  traditions  of  that  time  connected  it  with  Jacob  (Hos.  12^); 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  story  of  his  relation  to  the  place  might 
not  have  been  redacted  in  the  ninth  or  eighth  century — as  a  matter 
of  course  God  would  appear  to  him  on  this  sacred  spot.  The 
theophanies  appear  to  be  legendary  traditions  that  grew  up  as 
explanation  of  the  name  Bethel.*  The  place,  it  is  said,  was 
originally  called  Luz.  The  date  of  the  change  of  name  is  un- 
certain; it  may  have  been  at  the  conquest  of  the  city,  as  is  sug- 
gested in  Jd.  V^  ^- — the  conquerors  might  desire  to  stamp  it  with 
a  name  of  their  own  devising,  in  this  case  a  name  expressing  its 
character  as  an  old  shrine,  and  legend  would  then  connect  it 
with  the  tribal  ancestor. 

Of  the  precise  origin  and  significance  of  the  epithets  in  El  roi 
and  El  olam  we  have  no  information  beyond  the  statements  in 
Genesis.  The  latter  name  appears  to  refer  to  the  ancestral 
deity.  The  former  name  would  be  appropriate  for  any  theoph- 
any.  It  here  belongs  to  a  shrine  or  sacred  place  in  the  Arabian 
desert,  and  its  mention,  it  may  be  supposed,  springs  from  the 
local  interest  that  led  the  narrator  to  give  so  much  space  to  the 
story  of  Hagar.f 

6.  In  certain  passages  in  Genesis  the  term  Elohim  appears  to 
denote  "divine  being"  in  general,  and  thus  to  belong  to  the  poly- 
theistic circle  of  ideas.  Abraham  is  declared  by  Yahweh  to  be 
a  "fearer  of  Elohim"  (22*'),  a  God-fearing  man,  and  Joseph 
refuses  to  "sin  against  Elohim"  (39^).  No  particular  deity  is 
mentioned — the  word  Elohim  expresses  a  standard  of  conduct 

*  There  are  two  accounts  of  the  origin  of  the  name,  in  Gen.  28  and  35. 
t  The  name  Hagar  appears  to  represent  a  desert  tribe  to  which  the  border 
Israelites  felt  themselves  to  be  akin;   cf.  art.  "Hagar,"  in  Encijcl.  Bibl. 


10  POLYTHEISM  IN  GENESIS 

resident  in  a  superhuman  person.*  Whatever  the  precise  force 
of  the  term  in  such  cases,  the  usage  is  not  confined  to  Genesis: 
the  expression  "  man  of  God,"  of  frequent  occurrence  in  the  Old 
Testament  (Deut.  33S  1  Sam.  2^^  2  Kg.  1-8  al.)  means  a  man 
devoted  to  God,  standing  in  intimate  relation  with  him,  and  the 
Elohim  may  be  any  god  to  whom  the  man  is  devoted.  Since  an 
abstract  expression  for  deity  is  out  of  the  question  for  this  early 
time,  it  is  possible  that  Elohim  in  such  cases  as  those  just  men- 
tioned meant  originally  the  local  god  or  the  god  of  the  individual 
man  concerned;  but  if  so,  the  persistence  of  the  usage  makes  it 
impossible  to  regard  it  as  a  mark  of  date.f 

In  this  connection  may  be  mentioned  the  statement  in  19^^ — the 
destruction  of  the  cities  of  the  plain  by  Elohim.  As  the  destruc- 
tion is  described  at  length  in  the  preceding  part  of  the  chapter,  this 
verse  is  generally  regarded  as  belonging  to  a  separate  document, 
Elohim  here  doing  what  Yahweh  does  above.  The  statement  of 
the  verse  is  introduced  in  a  peculiar  w^ay  in  Am.  4":  Yahweh  says: 
"I  have  overthrown  among  you  like  Elohim's  overthrowing  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah."  It  is  strange  that  Yahweh  does  not  say 
"like  my  overthrowing" — he  seems  to  distinguish  between  himself 
and  Elohim.  The  text  may  be  in  disorder;  or  the  scribe,  for- 
getting for  the  moment  that  it  is  Yahweh  that  he  represents  as 
speaking,  simply  puts  down  the  account  familiar  to  him,  and 
fails  to  perceive  any  inconcinnity.  The  Elohim  in  Gen.  19^® 
may  be  the  local  god,  later  identified  with  Yahweh,  or  may  be 
the  God  of  Israel,  whom  the  writer,  for  whatever  reason,  chooses 
so  to  call. 

7.  We  have,  finally,  to  consider  the  role  played  by  angels  in 
Genesis.  The  familiar  fact  is  that  the  angel  sometimes  speaks 
as  if  he  were  an  independent  god,  and  there  is  sometimes  a  quiet 
identification  of  the  angel  of  Yahweh  with  Yahweh  (16^"-  ^^, 
22"  ^■),  or  of  the  angel  of  Elohim  with  Elohim  (31"-  '').  The 
Elohim  of  35^  (if  the  verb  be  taken  as  plural)  are  the  angels  of 
28'^  and  the  "man"  of  32-^  (called  "angel"  in  Hos.  12*)  is  later 
revealed  as  Elohim.  The  natural  inference  from  these  repre- 
sentations is  that  the  angels  are  old  gods.  We  are  thus  intro- 
duced to  a  period  in  Israelite  history  when  the  land  was  full  of 

*  Cf.  the  use  of  Elohim  as  a  superlative,  as  in  1  Sam.  14>'. 

t  It  is  employed  by  writers  who  habitually  use  the  name  Yahweh. 


POLYTHEISM  IN  GENESIS  11 

native  gods,  as  was  the  case  with  other  ancient  lands.  Probably 
every  shrine  had  its  local  deity  or  deities,  around  whom  stories 
would  grow  up.  Such  a  shrine  was  Peniel  ("face  of  God"),  the 
origin  of  which  name  is  given  in  the  story  in  ch.  28,  and  there  is 
added  the  explanation  of  why  the  Israelites  did  not  eat  a  certain 
sinew.*  In  the  course  of  time  these  figures  were  subordinated  to 
Yahweh  or  to  the  supreme  Elohim,  and  the  two  systems  were 
sometimes  mingled  in  the  later  narratives,  a  given  act  being 
attributed  now  to  the  angel,  now  to  the  supreme  god. 

The  "angel  of  Yahweh"  is  a  distinct  figure  from  Yahweh — a 
god  cannot  be  his  own  messenger  or  agent — but  his  procedure  is 
sometimes  of  the  same  character  as  that  of  Yahweh.  Nor  is 
the  role  of  the  angel  of  Yahweh  different  in  nature  from  that  of 
any  other  angel — the  "man"  of  ch.  28  acts  with  the  same  inde- 
pendent masterfulness  as  the  angel  of  ch.  16;  the  "angel  of 
Yahweh"  is  merely  the  angel  who  happens  to  act  for  his  divine 
principal  on  any  particular  occasion.  The  nominal  interchange 
between  the  two  in  a  narrative  is  probably  not  due  to  a  desire  on 
the  part  of  the  narrator  to  indicate  their  functional  identity;  this 
identity  he  assumes — what  is  said  by  the  angel  he  means  to  be 
taken  as  the  word  of  Yahweh — but  the  fact  was  understood  and 
no  demonstration  was  needed.  Possibly  the  explanation  of  the 
interchange  is  to  be  sought  in  the  supposition  that  in  the  original 
story  the  actor  was  a  local  god  who  later  became  an  angel,  and 
that  the  divine  name  was  introduced  in  the  course  of  redaction; 
in  such  a  case  the  redactor  would  not  be  conscious  of  inconcinnity, 
holding,  as  he  did,  that  the  act  of  the  angel  was  virtually  the  act 
of  Yahweh. 

If  this  view  of  the  origin  of  the  angel  as  an  old  native  god  be 
correct,  the  question  arises  as  to  when  the  new  name  arose,  when, 
that  is,  the  old  god  was  converted  into  a  maVak,  a  messenger  or 
agent  of  Yahweh  or  Elohim.  The  paucity  of  data  for  the  early 
history  makes  it  difficult  to  give  a  definite  answer  to  this  question. 
In  the  earlier  Old  Testament  documents  angels  are  a  part  of  the 
popular  scheme  of  supernatural  beings:  Jd.  6"  ^-y  13^-  ^  Num. 
22'^  2  Sam.  24^«,  1  Sam.  29'  (the  Philistine  Akish),  2  Sam.  14" 
(the  woman  of  Tekoa),  1  Kg.  13^® — they  belong  to  folk-lore. 
They  are  kept  distinct  from  spirits  (which  have  not  the  form  of 
*  Cf.  J.  G.  Frazer,  in  Anthrop.  Essays  Presented  to  Tylor. 


12  POLYTHEISM  IN   GENESIS 

gods  proper)  and  from  baals  (who  are  non-Israelite  deities). 
The  employment  of  the  term  "angels"  tells  nothing  about  the 
date  of  its  introduction;  once  adopted,  it  would  be  used  generally 
by  the  editors  of  the  documents.  The  process  of  transformation 
would  naturally  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  elevation  of  Yahweh 
to  supremacy,  of  which  one  effect  would  be  to  reject  or  subordi- 
nate the  inferior  gods.  The  prophets  of  the  eighth  and  seventh 
centuries,  engaged  in  a  struggle  for  the  sole  worship  of  Yahweh, 
appear  to  have  ignored  these  latter.  The  only  occurrence  of  the 
word  angel  in  those  prophetic  writings,  in  Hos.  12*,  is  in  a  folk- 
story,  and  its  employment  perhaps  indicates  the  path  of  trans- 
formation: the  "man"  of  Gen.  32^*  becomes  an  "angel."  Local 
gods  have  always  had  a  peculiarly  strong  hold  on  the  affections 
of  the  people.  If  that  was  the  case  in  Israel,  the  religious  leaders 
would  wisely  seek  not  to  banish  but  to  incorporate  these  figures 
— a  method  that  has  prevailed  in  all  religions.  The  term  "  mes- 
senger" was  a  natural  name  for  them — they  were  the  agents  of 
the  supreme  deity.*  How  soon  this  process  began  we  have  no 
means  of  determining  with  exactness,  but  it  seems  to  have  been 
virtually  completed  by  the  eighth  century.  The  later  history  of 
angels  does  not  belong  to  the  present  inquiry. 

The  preceding  investigation  appears  to  show  that,  while  the 
Book  of  Genesis  contains  conceptions  that  may  go  back  to  a  very 
early  period,  the  present  form  of  the  book  points  to  a  time  near 
the  eighth  century,  or  later,  for  its  redaction.  The  subject  is 
confessedly  obscure  (as  is  true  of  all  attempts  at  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  remote  times),  and  proposed  explanations  are  to  be  under- 
stood as  hypotheses  that  must  be  constantly  tested.  The  out- 
come of  the  Israelite  theistic  development  is  clear,  the  history  of 
its  growth  is  full  of  difficulties.  It  is  particularly  hard  to  decide 
what  part  of  the  development  is  common  Semitic  and  what 
part  is  specifically  Israelite,  and  in  this  latter  how  much  is  to  be 
attributed  to  outside  influence.  On  these  points  future  discov- 
eries may  throw  light. 

Harvard  University, 
May,  1910. 

*  So  the  Assyrian  Nusku  and  the  Greek  Iris. 


II 

THE  MEANING  OF  HEBREW  BITHRON 

(2  Samuel  2=9) 
By  William  R.  Arnold 

The  word  \T\r\2  occurs  only  once  in  the  Old  Testament  (2 
Sam.  2^®),  in  the  account  of  Abner's  retreat  to  Mahanaim  after 
his  disastrous  trial  of  strength  with  David's  army  at  the  pool  of 
Gibeon.     The  Masoretic  text  is:    ^3  niinya  ID^n  VtTJHI  n:n«1 

The  King  James  Version  renders  this  verse,  "And  Abner  and 
his  men  walked  all  that  night  through  the  plain,  and  passed  over 
Jordan,  and  went  through  all  Bithron,  and  they  came  to  Ma- 
hanaim." Except  for  the  correct  substitution  of  the  proper 
name  "the  Arabah"  for  "the  plain,"  and  the  incorrect  substitu- 
tion of  "went"  for  "walked,"  the  Revised  Version  retains  sub- 
stantially the  rendering  of  the  Authorized. 

In  the  view  that  p"in3n — whether  descriptive,  appellative,  or 
proper  name — stands  for  some  geographical  or  topographical 
quantity,  some  route,  district,  or  region  lying  east  of  Jordan, 
between  the  ford  which  was  crossed  by  Abner  and  the  city  of 
Mahanaim,  our  English  versions  follow  the  prevailing  tradition  of 
translators  and  exegetes,  both  ancient  and  modern.  But  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  uncertainty,  as  to  the  more  exact  character  of 
this  term,  seems  to  have  existed,  nevertheless,  from  the  earliest 
times. 

The  Alexandrian  Greek  texts  have:  Kal  hie^atvov  tov 
*lopBdvT]v  Kai  eiropevO-qaav  okrjv  rrjv  irapareivovaav ,  Kal  ep')(pvTat 
m  TTjv  Trape/x^oXijv,  There  are  no  variants  worth  mentioning.* 
Wellhausen,  forty  years  ago,  wrote:     "jlin^n  wird  auch  der 

*  See  Holmes  and  Parsons,  ad  loc.  *Etj  irape^iSoXdj  Ma5ta/«  of  the  "  Lucianic'* 
manuscripts  is  both  conflate  and  corrupt. 

13 


14  THE   MEANING  OF  HEBREW   BITHRON 

LXX  vorgelegen  haben  als  jnnn  =  TrapareCvovtra,  Bei  Ortsnamen 
ist  dergleichen  am  ehesten  begreiflich,  vgl.  Chaifa  Kaiphas, 
Milano  Mailand,  Mars  la  Tour  Marsch  retour  u.  a.";*  that  is, 
the  Greek  construes  the  word  as  a  proper  name  and  renders 
by  a  punning  Greek  equivalent.  That  such  fanciful  phonetic 
equations  were  not  foreign  to  the  Alexandrian  translators,  Well- 
hausen  has  sufficiently  well  shown.f  But  the  assumption  of  a 
reading  jJl^^  is  far-fetched,  and  would  perhaps  not  be  main- 
tained by  Wellhausen  himself  at  the  present  time.  Trapareiva) 
occurs  in  the  Greek  texts  of  the  Old  Testament  some  half-dozen 
times,t  always  with  the  meaning  to  extend,  to  stretch  out,  to  be 
outlying,  and  prevailingly  in  topographical  contexts.§  The 
Greek  rendered  our  passage,  Aiid  they  crossed  the  Jordan,  and 
traversed  the  entire  outlying  region,  and  arrived  at  the  camp 
(Mahanaim).  Whether  the  translator  construed  jlin^  as  a 
proper  name  or  as  an  appellative  remains,  to  be  sure,  uncertain. 
But  it  is  apparent  that  no  derivative  of  Hebrew  *in3  will  support 
his  rendering.  The  interpretation  v  Trapareivovaa  is,  in  my 
judgment,  obviously  based  on  Aramaic  IJli,  after,  or  some  deriv- 
ative thereof,  such  as  ni<"in3  or  ^<n''"ini,  posterior,  postremu^; 

cf.  Syriac  lla-iLs,  posterioritas.]\    ^n^  (or  inx^)  occurs  already 

in  Daniel  2^®,  7^^  Possibly  the  translator  supposed  the  word  to 
have  been  the  Aramaic  proper  name  of  a  trans- Jordanic  territory; 
or  he  may  have  adopted  the  rendering  as  a  counsel  of  despair, 
though  construing  the  word  as  a  Hebrew  appellative.  At  all 
events,  since  Aramaic  ^r\2  is  itself  compounded  of  the  preposi- 
tion 2  and  *inx  spot,  place,  track,  to  account  for  the  Greek  inter- 
pretation is  to  reject  it. 

Of  the  later  Greek  versions,  we  know  only  that  Aquila  ren- 
dered jnnnn  as  a  proper  name,  ^edcopwv.^  The  usual  Greek 
spelling  of  Hebrew  pmn  n''i  being  ^aidcopmv,  it  is  extremely 

*  Der  Text  der  Bilcher  Samuelis,  p.  156. 

t  L.  c,  pp.  10  f.,  note. 

X  See  Hatch  and  Redpath,  Concordance  to  the  Septuagint,  p.  1065. 

§  With  rb  iraparetvov  in  rrjv  eprjfwv  the  Greek  correctly  renders  'JO  V  '\pv:n 
IDit^vn  of  Numbers  23^*,  against  the  current  and  misleading  "that  looks  down 
upon  "  of  modern  interpreters.  Balak  took  Balaam  to  the  head  of  a  ravine 
(nWfl)  that  extended  to  (or  looked  out  upon)  the  IC>B'\ 

II  See  Payne  Smith,  Thesaurus,  ad  voc.  jLs. 

^  Field,  Origenis  Hexaplorum  quae  supersunt,  I,  p.  550. 


THE   MEANING   OP  HEBREW   BITHRON  15 

improbable  that  Aquila  had  a  different  reading  from  our  \T\r\2. 
In  construing  it  as  a  proper  name,  he  merely  followed  the  rab- 
binical exegesis  of  his  day. 

The  text  of  Aquila  evidently  suggested  to  Jerome  the  pro- 
nunciation Bethoron  for  the  word  which  he,  too,  understood  as  a 
proper  name:  et  transicrunt  Jordanem  et  lustrata  omni  Bethoron 
(some  manuscripts  and  the  official  Vulgate  have  Beth  horon) 
vcnerunt  ad  castra;  for  there  is  no  trace  of  a  Hebrew  jmn  IV2 
in  any  text  of  this  passage.  Vercellone  *  quotes  the  opinion  of 
Clericus  to  the  effect  that  later  scribes,  and  not  Jerome,  should  be 
held  responsible  for  the  Vulgate  reading  Beth  horon  instead  of 
Bithron.  But  Jerome's  Onomasticon  contains,  under  the  rubric 
Interpretaiiones  secundi  libri  regum,  the  definition  Bethoron 
domus  z>£P,t  showing  that,  whether  Jerome  wrote  Bethoron  or 
Beth  horon — more  probably  the  former — he  identified  the  word 
with  the  Hebrew  proper  name  plin  H*"^.  Evidently  he,  too,  was 
more  confused  than  informed  upon  the  subject. 

The  Peshlta  seems  to  have  taken  the  bull  by  the  horns,  avoid- 
ing the  difficulties  of  translation  by  means  of  a  bold  paraphrase: 

>->tf  mViS      oZ]o     'a-'-a     >  'H^     °^l)o     tt'?'^-*     oi>a^o 

And  they  crossed  the  Jordan,  and  marched  in  the  direction  of 
Geshur,  and  reached  Mahanaim.X  The  only  light  this  version 
sheds  upon  our  problem  is  that  the  translator  admittedly  did  not 
quite  understand  his  Hebrew,  and  had  manifestly  never  heard 
of  such  a  locality  as  "  the  Bithron." 

Jewish  rabbinical  tradition  has  followed  the  most  comfortable 
course  by  explaining  pin^H  as  a  geographical  proper  name. 
So  the  Targum  of  Jonathan:  inS"!  ]inn:i  h'2  I^TXI  mnn*"  ]!••  'n:ij?"'1 
Cino^.  Similarly  the  mediaeval  commentators, §  who  do  not 
linger  upon  the  subject.  Rashi  contents  himself  with  two 
words,  TiriD  Qil',  name  of  a  localitrj.  David  Qimhi:  ^i^iT  TinfS  Dty 
rh'^\^  yn^  i''"':y  ^y  p  Snp:  jll''^  nnya,  name  of  a  toivn  and  terrltonj 
lying  beyond  the  Jordan,  and  named  accordingly,  after  the  familiar 

*  Varice  lediones  vulgatce  Latino;  Bibliorum  editionis,  II,  p.  326. 
t  Lagarde,  Onomastica  sacra,^  p.  68. 

I  I  cite  from  the  London  polyglot;  the  Uriimiah  edition  has  the  same 
text. 

§  See  the  Rabbinical  Bibles. 


16  THE   MEANING  OF  HEBREW  BITHRON 

meaning  of  the  word  [having  reference  not  to  Hebrew,  but  to 
Aramaic  in^,  and  understanding  the  name  as  designating  the 
country  behind  or  beyond  Jordan]. 

The  sohtary  non-topographical  explanation  of  jlin^n  which 
I  have  found  is  that  of  the  mediaeval  lexicographer,  Ibn  Parhon 
whose  dictionary  (a.d.  1160)*  has  this  definition:  pin^n  b'D  Iw'"'* 

\^2n  p3  j''«-ina  cinnx  miin  ^•'nn  tno  's :    The  meaning  of  \r\n2r. 

is  the  rear  guard,  j*"X"in3  being  Aramaic  for  CJIinS,  (the  last)  of 
the  retreating  troops.  Ibn  Parhon  obviously  construed  the  word 
as  subject  of  l^^"*,  and,  like  the  Alexandrian  Greek  version  be- 
fore him  and  David  Qimhi  after  him,  took  it  for  a  derivative  of 
Aramaic  "in^.  The  interpretation  is  nothing  more  than  a  curi- 
osity. But  it  is  interesting  to  find  one  scholar  to  whom  the  con- 
struction of  jl^n^n  bD  as  object  of  l^b**  was  not  the  most  natural 
one. 

Coming  to  more  modern  authorities,  Gesenius  f  interpreted 
piil^n  as  an  appellative:  "regio  montibus  vallibusque  dissecta, 
vel  vallis  montes  dissecans'^ ;  rendering,  et  peragrata  tota  valle 
venerunt  Machanaim.  He  held  that  it  makes  little  difference 
whether  the  word  be  construed  as  a  proper  name  or  as  an  appel- 
lative, since  even  the  proper  name  will  have  originated  from  the 
character  of  the  place;  the  trans- Jordanic  country  being  exceed- 
ingly mountainous. 

Recent  lexicographers  and  commentators  invariably  explain 
piriDn  as  a  geographical  term,  some  construing  it  as  an  appella- 
tive, but  most  as  a  proper  name.  Gesenius-Buhl :  "  N.  pr.  einer 
Schlucht  an  d.  Ostseite  d.  Jordans."  Brown-Driver-Briggs,  mort' 
cautiously:  "prob.  n.  pr.  terr.  (cleft,  ravine)  E.  of  Jordan." 
Siegfried  and  Stade:  "n.  pr.,  Ort  am  Jordan."  Of  commen- 
taries and  critical  translations,  Wellhausen  has  already  been 
cited.  Kittel  J  renders:  " durchschritten  die  ganze  Schlucht 
und  gelangten  so  nach  Mahanaim."  Lohr  § :  "  Ein  Ort  des 
Namens  findet  sich  sonst  nicht;  es  muss  (sie  setzen  iiber  den 
Jordan)  eine  Oertlichkeit  jenseits  des  Jordans  sein;  eine  be- 
stimmte  Bergschlucht  welche  vom  Jordansufer  nach  Mahanaim 

*  Mahbereth  ha'arUch,  edited  by  S.  G.  Stern,  Pressburg,  1844,  p.  11  o. 

t  Thesaurus,  s.  v. 

X  In  Kautzsch's  Heilige  Schrift  des  Alien  Testaments. 

§  Die  Bucher  Samuelis,  p.  130. 


THE   MEANING   OF   HEBREW   BITHRON  17 

gerade  emporfiihrt."  Henry  Preserved  Smith  *:  "Abnerandhis 
men  marched  in  the  Arahah  all  that  night  and  crossed  the  Jordan 
and  went  through  the  whole  Bithron  or  Ravine,  doubtless  the 
proper  name  of  one  of  the  side  valleys  up  which  Mahanaim  was 
situated."  Nowack  f  renders:  "zog  durch  die  ganze  Schlucht, 
und  kam  nach  Mahanaim,"  and  remarks,  "  jliriin  b'2  ist  fraglich, 
nur  so  viel  ist  klar,  es  muss  eine  Oertlichkeit  jenseits  des  Jordans 
sein,  seiner  Bedeutung  nach  ware  es  'Kluft,  Schlucht.'"  Finally, 
Budde  t:  "jliriin,  nur  hier,  die  Kluft,  Schlucht,  Klamm,  muss 
das  Seitenthal  sein,  au  dessen  oberem  Ende  Mahanajim  liegt, 
also  nach  unserer  Annahme  .  .  .  der  heutige  W.  el-himar."  § 

The  works  on  the  geography  of  Palestine  naturally  conform 
to  the  current  interpretation  of  pljli.  George  Adam  Smith  1]: 
"Abner,  after  crossing  Jordan,  came  through  the  Bithron  or 
Gorge,  a  name  which  suits  the  narrow  central  portion  of  the 
Jordan  Valley,  to  Mahanaim."  Incidentally,  it  may  be  observed 
that  Smith  fails  to  follow  the  narrative;  the  northward  portion 
of  Abner's  journey,  which  lay  through  that  gorge  (n^iyn),  had 
been  accomplished  before  crossing  the  Jordan — unless  we  are 
to  maintain  that  HilJ^n  and  pin^n  were  two  mutually  exclusive 
sections  of  the  Ghor,  with  Mahanaim  situated  immediately  on 
the  eastern  edge  of  the  latter.  Buhl  Tf  is  more  in  accord  with 
recent  commentators,  "  Das  2  Sam.  2^^  genannte  Bitron  (entweder 
nom.  propr.  od.  appelL,  etwa  'Kluft'),  durch  welches  Abner  auf 
dem  Wege  nach  Mahanaim  hinaufging,  kann  man  wohl  am  besten 
mit  W.  'aglun  zusammenstellen;  jedenfalls  lief  spater,  wie  es 
scheint,  ein  Romerweg  von  aglun  nach  Mahanaim." 

Now  it  can  be  shown  that  all  the  interpretations  and  opinions 
cited  above  are  fundamentally  mistaken.  The  expression  ITirOn 
is  not  a  geographical  or  topographical  term,  whether  descriptive, 
appellative,  or  proper  name.  The  words  pnn^n  b^  are  not  the 
direct  object  of  the  preceding  *13^*"1,  but  constitute  an  adverbial 
clause  indicative  of  the  time  during  which  the  march  continued. 

*  Commentary  on  the  Books  of  Samuel,  p.  273. 
t  Handkommentar  zum  A.  T.,  p..  159. 
I  Kurzer  Handkommentar  zum  A.  T.,  p.  207. 

§  Driver,  Notes  on  the  Hebrew  Text  of  the  Books  of  Samuel,  passes  over  the 
troublesome  passage  without  comment. 

li  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land,  p.  586,  note  2. 
If  Geographic  des  alten  Paldstina,  p.  121. 


18  THE   MEANING  OF  HEBREW   BITHRON 

p^n^n  bz  cannot  be  the  direct  object  of  ^'2b*'^.  It  is  true  that 
an  accusative — without  preposition — is  sometimes  used  with  "J^n 
in  the  Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testament;  but  such  accusative  is 
almost  invariably  an  adverbial  modifier,  and  not  the  direct  ob- 
ject of  the  verb.  That  such  is  the  construction  in  the  case  of 
accusatives  of  time  will  be  readily  conceded.  So  rh'hT]  h'2  "ID^n, 
in  the  verse  we  are  discussing  and  in  the  following  v.  ^".  But 
the  construction  of  "J^n  in  13^n  ntTK  "jmn  (Gn.  35^)  differs  in 
no  respect  from  that  in  "i^^n  n'yTN  D^tt"'"  (Dt.  2").  A  demon- 
stration, perhaps  superfluous,  is  furnished  by  the  text  of  Je. 

52^:    nnn^n  "[m  '\:h^\  D"'nDnn']^n  nyir  "[m  in':;*'!;  as  "]m  cannot 

be  the  direct  object  of  fc^^**  in  the  first  case,  it  is  not  the  direct 
object  of  ^T\  in  the  second;  they  "go  out  by"  such  a  road, 
and  they  "travel  by"  such  a  road.  In  the  same  way  presum- 
ably must  we  construe  such  expressions  as  11"  "j^H  of  Is.  35^ 
mni^  l^^**  and  even  Jll^Tli  "'^^n  of  Judges  5",  although,  since  the 
accusatives  are  indeterminate,  one  case  would  not  be  prejudiced 
by  admitting  them  to  be  direct  objects.  The  passages  in  which 
"]f?n  must  be  given  the  transitive  meaning  traverse,  march  thro7igh, 
are,  as  far  as  I  can  discover,  only  two:    Dt.  V^,  l^il  i"in!3  yD2T 

Dn-'Ni  ntrs*  i^inn  «mim  ^n^n  nmian  bz  nx,  and  we  left  Horeh 

and  traversed  the  whole  of  this  great  and  terrible  wilderness 
ivhich  ye  have  seen;  Dt.  2^  HTH  bl^T]  "iniDn  n«  "jH^^  ^n""  mn'' 
Yahwe  was  aivare  of  thy  march  through  this  great  wilderness.* 
These  two  passages  are  adduced  by  H.  P.  Smith  in  support  of 
the  current  interpretation  of  pnnDn  b!D  'I3^'»  of  2  Sam.  2^^t  But 
a  closer  study  would  have  convinced  him  that  they  refute  rather 
than  support  his  conclusion.  The  accusative  is  determinate  in 
the  one  case  (imDH  bz,  na"II3n)  as  in  the  other  (p"in:in  ^D). 
But  in  the  Deuteronomy  passages  the  particle  ns  shows  we 
are  dealing  with  a  direct  object,  whereas  in  the  other,  jTinisr!  bz 
being  determinate,  the  absence  of  HN  proves  that  we  are  not  deal- 
ing with  a  direct  object. 

*  Driver,  in  Brown-Driver-Briggs,  s.v.  hn,  holds  that  in  these  passages  we 
have  a  peculiar  use  of  pn  rather  than  a  transitive  use  of  n*?""!;  but  it  is  easier 
to  assume  the  latter  than  the  former  in  so  transparent  a  context.  The  case 
is  diiTerent  in  Dt.  9'^  (accusative  of  time).  On  the  other  hand,  nin'>  nn  pni 
-\hn  ijN  of  Jud.  19'^  is  imintelligible  and  certainly  corrupt;  see  Moore's  Com- 
mentary, pp.  415  f. 

t  L.  c,  note. 


THE  MEANING   OF   HEBREW   BITHRON  19 

But  if  ]Tin;in  h'2  is  an  adverbial  accusative  and  nevertheless 
determinate,  it  can  have  reference  only  to  time,  and  not  to  space; 
for  while  jTiriin  as  an  adverbial  accusative,  indicative  of  the 
route  taken,  would  perhaps  be  possible,*  p'lnin  b'D  would  be 
entirely  impossible.  The  expression  pin^sn  b'2  l^^"*"!  of  2^^  is 
exactly  parallel  to  Th'hr\  h^  ^'2h'''\  of  2^"  in  the  narrative  of  our 
author.  In  v.  -^  Abner  and  his  men  travel  all  the  hithrbn  and 
arrive  at  Mahanaim;  in  v.  ^^  Joab  and  his  men  travel  all  the 
night  and  arrive  at  Hebron.  |1"in2n  is  the  name  of  a  certain 
fart  of  the  twenty-four-hour  day. 

On  the  question  as  to  what  part  of  the  day  it  designates, 
etymology  and  the  narrative  of  the  author  we  are  interpreting 
combine  to  leave  no  doubt  whatever.  After  the  battle  (2^^) 
between  the  forces  of  Abner  and  those  of  Joab  at  the  pool  of 
Gibeon  (2^^),  the  Israelites  fled  before  the  pursuing  Judeans 
eastward  toward  the  Arabah  or  Gorge  of  the  Jordan  Valley. 
The  course  of  this  flight  naturally  led  through  the  pyi)l  121D 
(v.  ^),  that  is,  that  part  of  The  Wilderness  ("12^I^^,  stretching  all 
along  the  cultivated  and  inhabited  country  and  separating  the 
latter  from  the  Arabah)  which  lay  parallel  with  the  city  of  Gibeon. f 
At  sunset,  the  fugitive  Israelites  reach  a  site  in  the  "liSlD  called 
"iSX  rij?;33,  so  little  known  to  his  readers  that  the  author  locates 
it  as  lying  opposite  rT'i  on  the  road  through  the  pyii  *12'TD 
(v.^).t    There  they  effect  a  rally  of  all  their  forces,  and  take  their 

*  Note,  however,  that  our  author  says  na-ijja  13*^^,  not  ^a-tyn. 

t  pj?3J  i3nD  is  not  "the  pasture  land  of  Gibeon,"  which,  the  commentators 
in  their  bewilderment  correctly  point  out,  could  hardly  be  the  rallying-point  for 
the  Israelites  at  sunset,  after  their  long  flight  away  from  the  pool  of  Gibeon; 
but  that  part  of  the  common  wilderness,  nancn,  which  lies  alongside  of 
Gibeon.  So  ^n  lano  |ij;d  -(3id>  SNn>  i3i3>  j?ipn  nann  refer  to  those  sections  of 
the  great  wilderness  lying  between  civilization  and  the  Arabah  which  faced 
these  several  towns  respectively.  The  expression  is  in  all  respects  analogous 
to  inT"  j-n'',  the  Jordan  at  Jericho.  And  naicn,  par  excellence,  is  as  much  of 
a  proper  name  as  na^yn. 

X  It  is  not  at  all  to  the  point  that  to  us  nu  is  as  little  known  as  ncN  rjraj 
itself.  The  author  was  not  writing  for  us,  but  for  his  contemporaries;  and 
defeated  troops  are  frequently  content  with  a  very  insignificant  village  in 
sight  of  which  to  come  to  terms  with  their  pursuers.  For  the  rest,  it  would 
be  hard  to  find  a  passage  in  the  Old  Testament  where  learning  has  done  more 
to  make  confusion  worse  confounded.  The  most  nearly  correct  rendering  of 
2  Sam.  2-*  which  I  can  find  is  that  of  the  English  Authorized  Version.  The 
Septuagint,  Vulgate,  and  Luther  all  misconstrue  at  one  or  more  points;  but 


20  THE   MEANING  OF   HEBREW   BITHRON 

stand  upon  a  single  knoll  (v.^^),  while  Abner  implores  Joab  to 
call  a  halt  to  the  baneful  slaughter  (v.^^).  Whereupon  Joab 
withdraws  his  followers  from  the  pursuit,  and  the  two  armies 
march  back  to  their  respective  headquarters,  Abner  to  Mahanaim, 
and  Joab  to  Hebron.  The  author  tells  how  long  it  took  each 
army  to  reach  home.  Leaving  n!2X  D])2^  (east,  or  perhaps  east 
by  north,  of  Gibeon)  at  sunset  (v.^^),  and  stopping  first  on  the 
route  of  the  pursuit  to  recover  his  brother's  body,  then,  late  at 
night,  at  Bethlehem  to  inter  the  body  in  the  tomb  of  his  fathers 
(v.^^),  Joab  continues  his  march  through  the  night  and  reaches 
Hebron  at  sunrise  of  the  next  day  (v.^").  Abner,  on  the  other 
hand,  marches  northward  through  the  Arabah,  along  the  west 
bank  of  the  Jordan,  all  through  the  night,  crosses  the  Jordan  in 
the  morning,  and,  marching  all  the  |l"in3,  arrives  at  Mahanaim. 
It  is  clear  from  this  narrative  that  pir^n  is  less  than  twelve 
hours,  for  there  is  no  mention  of  sunset  or  evening  of  the  ensuing 
day.     jl"inj3n  is  therefore  a  fraction  of  the  (twelve-hour)  day. 

If  now  we  turn  to  the  following  chapter  4,  we  may  see  how 
much  time,  in  the  estimation  of  this  our  author,  the  journey  be- 
tween the  Jordan  and  Mahanaim  ordinarily  consumed.  There 
the  two  assassins  of  Ishbaal  travel  in  the  reverse  direction.  They 
commit  the  murder  in  the  palace  at  Mahanaim  at  noon  (DITI  DHI^), 
while  Ishbaal  is  enjoying  his  noon  siesta  {^y^'Ci  nX  y2'^  i<im 
D''"in*.iri).*  Then,  carrying  with  them  the  head  of  Ishbaal,  they 
hasten  to  David  at  Hebron,  spending  the  whole  night  in  travel- 
ling southward  through  the  Arabah  {rh'^bn  b'2  riDnyn  '^'11  ^'2h^'\). 
The  character  of  their  burden  would  admit  of  no  delay.  The 
author  does  not  tell  us  at  what  point  of  time  on  the  ensuing  day 

all  come  nearer  to  a  correct  understanding  of  the  Hebrew  than  do  modern 
scholars,  who,  following  Wellhausen  in  one  of  the  moments  when  he  nodded, 
have  continued  to  wrestle  vigorously  with  difficulties  of  their  own  creation. 
If  we  but  perceive  that  tm  is  adverbial  accusative  and  construct  to  the  com- 
pound PJ73J  nam,  we  have  no  difficulty  whatever  with  the  Masoretic  text, 
which  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  the  Septuagint's  Hebrew  differed  from 
materially.  There  was  a  well-known  road  running  through  the  i3id,  where 
the  latter  was  known  as  the  pj?3j  nanc,  do-siTi  to  the  Arabah,  and  called  •]-\•^ 
|ij;3J  i3i?D.  Along  this  road  lay  the  town  or  village  of  nu,  and  across  the  road 
from  it,  perhaps  some  distance  back,  the  height  called  J^cn  njjaj^  on  one  of 
whose  knolls  or  foot-hills  Abner  rallied  his  men  for  a  final  stand. 

*  2  Sam.  4*;  the  authentic  text  is  continued  with  the  word  mon  of  v.  ''; 
V.  °  and  V.  ''  to  laaa'D  are  palpable  marginal  annotations. 


THE   MEANING  OF  HEBREW   BITHRON  21 

they  reached  Hebron;  but  it  is  clear  that  he  wishes  us  to  under- 
stand that  the  time  from  noon  of  the  first  day,  when  the  assassina- 
tion took  place,  to  evening,  when  they  began  their  all-night  journey 
through  the  Ghor,  was  spent  in  traversing  the  distance  between 
Mahanaim  and  the  Ghor,  where  they  would  presumably  cross 
the  Jordan  by  the  same  ford  that  Abner  used  on  his  retreat. 
The  time  consumed  in  covering  the  distance  from  the  Jordan  to 
Mahanaim  was,  therefore,  in  the  opinion  of  our  author,  half  a 
day. 

Judging  from  the  context  of  the  narrative,  then,  pinnn  is  the 
half-day,  and,  in  this  particular  context,  the  forenoon. 

The  root  of  the  word  ]T\r\2  would  of  itself  have  led  to  the  same 
conclusion.  For  the  verb  "in^  does  not  mean  to  cleave  asunder, 
as  is  assumed  in  the  interpretation  cleft,  ravine,*  valley,  but  very 
distinctly  to  cut  into  two  symmetrical  halves:  Gn.  15^^  Abram 
cuts  0^^*!)  the  various  animals  straight  through  the  middle  and 
lays  each  half  ("inzi)  over  against  its  mate  (inyi);  Je.  34^^^-,  the 
calf  which  they  divided  into  two  {U^y^h  ^TT\'2)  and  'passed  between 
its  halves  ('l'»"in3)  .  .  .  all  the  'people  of  the  land  that  passed 
between  the  halves  of  the  calf  (iin^  |"'3  □"•"l^yn  pxn  DJ?  ^D 
^jyn).  This  covers  all  the  occurrences  of  the  root  *in2  in  the 
Old  Testament  but  one,  which  will  be  mentioned  below.  Ety- 
mologically,  therefore,  jTin^n  will  be  a  period  of  time  charac- 
terized as  the  symmetrical  half  of  something.  But  forenoon  and 
afternoon  were  the  only  two  such  periods  known  to  the  calen- 
dar of  the  age,  which  lacked  our  artificial  midnight. 

As  regards  the  form  ji^t^p,  I  need  but  point  out  that  it  is  pre- 
cisely that  which  we  should  expect,  by  analogy,  for  such  a  deriv- 
ative with  specific  connotation.  Compare  ji"lDn  deficit,  from 
ipn  lack;  pin*'  surplus,  from  "IH^  remainder;  pi*"'n  exterior,  from 
|*in  outside;  |i;D''n  interior,  from  ^^'H  inside;  (i"ini<  last,  from  "in^? 
hinder  part;  |iiyK"l  first,  from  ITNI  head.  ]T\r\2  is  accordingly 
essentially  an  adjectival  denominative,  derived  from  in2  (sym- 
metrical) half.  With  the  article  it  becomes  idiomatic  for  the 
half-day. 

*  The  exact  Hebrew  for  cleft,  ravine,  is  njO£3.  That  njosn,  whenever  it 
occurs  in  the  Old  Testament,  is  a  ravine  and  not  a  mountain,  I  hope  to  show 
in  a  future  paper. 


22  THE  MEANING  OF  HEBREW   BITHRON 

As  an  appellative  with  this  sense  \T\T\2  should  accordingly 
be  added  to  our  Hebrew  lexicography.  And  2  Sam.  2^^  should 
be  rendered:  And  Ahner  and  his  men  marched  through  the 
Arabah  all  that  night,  then  crossed  the  Jordan,  and,  marching  all 
the  forenoon,  arrived  at  Mahanaim. 

It  should  be  noted,  in  passing,  that  the  Hebrew  has  no  other 
means  of  expressing  the  idea  of  forenoon  or  half-day.  As  is  cor- 
rectly emphasized  in  Brown-Driver-Briggs,  1p3  is  never  equiva- 
lent to  our  English  morning  in  the  sense  of  a  period  of  time. 

With  this  result  achieved,  some  light  may  perhaps  be  thrown 
on  the  only  remaining  Old  Testament  passage  that  contains  the 
root  *in2,  Song  of  Songs  2^^,  which,  in  spite  of  some  fanciful 
conjectures,  has  remained  completely  enigmatical.  "iri3  '•"in  of 
this  passage  is  seen  to  be  exactly  analogous  to  t^l  """in  of  Je. 
13*'.  If  in  the  latter  case  we  have  mountains  of  turilight,  in 
the  former  we  probably  have  mountains  of  the  (completed)  half 
=  mountains  of  noon  day  =  mountains  at  noon  time.  The  lover 
is  besought  not  to  hurry  away,  but  to  linger  motionless  like  the 
hart  upon  the  mountains  in  the  noonday  heat. 

Finally,  if  our  conclusions  have  been  correct,  we  have  one 
important  datum  toward  determining  the  site  of  Mahanaim. 
We  know  for  a  certainty  that  it  was  a  half-day's  journey  from 
the  Jordan.  If  Joab  took  about  twelve  hours  to  journey  from 
niSS  nj?;n;i,  in  the  I^ID  facing  Gibeon,  to  Hebron,  a  distance 
of  some  twenty-five  to  thirty  miles,  Mahanaim  was  situated 
some  twelve  to  fifteen  miles  on  the  other  side  of  Jordan,  probably 
in  a  north-easterly  direction  from  the  ford  commonly  crossed  by 
those  journeying  thither.  The  ruins  of  Mahne,  as  far  as  I  can 
judge  of  their  location  from  Briinnow's  map,*  would  comport 
very  well  with  this  conclusion;  for,  if  Abner  travelled  all  night 
up  the  Arabah  before  crossing  the  Jordan,  Mahanaim  certainly 
lay  north  of  the  Jabbok.f 

Andover  Theological  Seminary, 
August,  1910. 

*  In  Brunnow  and  Domascewski,  Die  Provincia  Arabia. 
t  Cf.  Gn.  32'.  =^3. 


Ill 

EXEGETICAL  NOTES  ON  JEREMIAH 

By  Juuus  a.  Bewer 

1.   The  Date  of  the  Vision  of  the  Almond  Tree,  !"•  *^ 

The  genuineness  of  chap.  1,  which  was  denied  by  Duhm,  has 
been  so  successfully  defended  by  Stade  and  Cornill  that  it  need 
not  again  be  proved.  Its  authenticity  may  therefore  be  assumed 
without  further  argument.  In  regard,  however,  to  the  date  of 
w."'  *^  a  reconsideration  appears  to  the  present  writer  to  be  in 
order. 

The  verses  are  usually  taken  together  with  the  immediately 
preceding  inaugural  vision  and  with  the  following  vision  of  the 
boiling  caldron  and  dated  from  the  same  time.  Yet  it  is  clear, 
as  soon  as  the  attempt  is  made  to  interpret  them  psychologically, 
that  they  cannot  come  from  the  same  time  as  vv.*  ^-  or  vv.^'  *^-, 
for  they  presuppose  a  period  of  doubt  and  disappointment.  The 
essential  point  in  the  vision  is  that  Yahweh  is  waking,  watching 
to  fulfil  his  word,  though  all  appearances  may  be  against  it. 
Was  there  any  reason  why  Jeremiah  should  doubt  this  at  the 
very  outset?  Did  he  need  this  kind  of  encouragement  then? 
Hardly!  The  kind  of  doubt  and  scruple  he  really  had  at  that 
time  is  described  in  v.*.  Moreover,  what  is  the  content  of  the 
word  that  Yahweh  is  to  fulfil?  How  could  Jeremiah  know  it? 
So  far  it  had  not  yet  been  given,  up  to  this  time  he  had  received 
nothing  more  than  vv.  ^"^^^"M  Must  we  suppose  that  he  divined 
it  all?  But  even  if  he  did  divine  it,  what  reason  can  be  given 
why  he  should  need  this  kind  of  a  message  at  this  time  ?  It  was 
surely  not  customary  for  prophets  to  doubt  that  Yahweh  would 
carry  out  his  word,  at  the  beginning  of  their  prophetic  career! 

23 


24  EXEGETICAL   NOTES   ON   JEREMIAH 

No,  the  vision  presupposes  a  time  of  disappointment  and  must 
be  the  result  of  great  and  bitter  soul-struggles.  Jeremiah  had 
proclaimed  Yahweh's  word  for  some  time,  but  it  had  not  come 
to  pass.  The  Scythian  storm  had  passed  by  without  harming 
Jerusalem.  Things  had  settled  down  quietly;  there  seemed  to 
be  no  reason  for  Jeremiah's  dark  prophecies.  He  appears  dis- 
credited, and  yet  he  knows  himself  to  be  a  true  prophet  of 
Yahweh.  He  cannot  doubt  the  reality  and  genuineness  of  his 
prophetic  experiences.  But  how  can  it  be  that  Yahweh's  pre- 
dictions remain  unfulfilled  ?  The  problem  grows  ever  darker, 
the  stress  ever  greater,  until  at  last  he  suddenly  sees  the  solution 
clearly  in  his  soul  in  an  ever  memorable  vision :  Yahweh  had  not 
forgotten  his  word,  he  was  waking,  watching  to  fulfil  his  purpoee. 

Now,  is  it  possible  to  suggest  when  Jeremiah  had  this  vision  ? 
Erbt,*  who  is  the  only  one  besides  the  present  writer  f  to  per- 
ceive that  w.  "•  ^^  presuppose  a  period  of  activity  on  the  part 
of  the  prophet,  places  them  "perhaps  shortly  before  Josiah's 
reformation."  To  the  present  writer  the  year  605  B.C.  seems 
the  most  probable  date  for  such  an  experience.  Not  indeed  for 
the  time  of  doubt  but  for  the  time  of  vision.  We  know  how 
memorable  that  year  was  for  Jeremiah.  It  was  then  that  he 
felt  constrained  to  write  down  his  oracles.  In  chap.  36  we  have 
Baruch's  report  of  it.  Here  in  the  narrative  of  this  vision,  !"•  ", 
Jeremiah  himself  tells  us  of  the  underlying  spiritual  experience 
that  made  him  so  certain  that  the  long  proclaimed  word  of 
Yahweh  whose  fulfilment  men  had  doubted  and  denied  was  yet 
to  be  fulfilled.  Yahweh  was  watching  after  all.  As  the  almond 
tree  wakes  when  other  trees  are  still  asleep  in  their  deep  winter's 
sleep,  so  Yahweh  was  waking  when  others  could  not  discern  the 
great  movements  of  history,  watching  to  fulfil  his  word.  The 
Scythian  danger  may  have  passed  by  without  doing  any  harm: 
Yahweh's  word  is  nevertheless  true,  and  will  certainly  be  fulfilled. 
The  enemy  from  the  north  is  coming:  the  Babylonian  King 
Nebuchadrezzar ! 

It  is  clear  now  why  Jeremiah  put  this  little  section  before 
w.  *^  ^-  in  which  he  narrates  the  vision  that  announces  the  coming 

*  Jeremia  und  seine  Zeit.     Die  Geschichte  der  letzten  funfzig  Jahre  des  vor- 
exilischen  Juda,  1902.     The  Preface  is  dated  September  25th. 
t  Cf.  A.  J.  Th.,  July,  1902,  p.  516. 


EXEGETICAL  NOTES   ON   JEREMIAH  25 

of  the  enemy  from  the  north.  This  first  chapter  is  an  apologia 
pro  prophctia  sua  intended  to  present  the  credentials  of  his 
prophethood,  and  so  when  he  dictated  in  605  B.C.  the  story  of 
his  divine  call  and  commission,  he  wrote  directly  after  the  in- 
augural vision  this  later  vision,  in  order  to  make  it  quite  clear 
that  he  was  sure  that  Yahweh's  word  would  be  fulfilled.  The 
King  and  princes  and  people  may  not  yet  see  it,  Jeremiah  knows 
that  Yahweh  is  watching  over  his  word.  And  he  wrote  it  before 
the  vision  of  the  announcement  of  the  northern  enemy,  in  order 
to  anticipate  the  objection  that  the  Scythians  had,  after  all,  not 
come.  The  enemy  from  the  north  is  coming,  not  the  Scythian, 
indeed,  but  the  Chaldean  army.  Thus  the  insertion  here  at 
this  point  is  justified,  and  goes  back  to  Jeremiah  himself.* 
Cornill  is  quite  right  when  he  says  that  there  exists  in  any  case 
an  inner  connection  between  Jeremiah's  call  and  the  two  follow- 
ing visions.  But  as  regards  the  first,  it  is  not  a  connection  in 
time  but  in  inner  experience. 

2.  Interpretation  and  Date  of  2'*-'^-  ^'-  " 

The  problems  connected  with  Je.  2"'^^  are  well  known.  But 
though  much  thought  has  been  spent  on  the  interpretation  of  this 
most  difficult  passage,  no  altogether  satisfactory  solution  has 
been  arrived  at. 

One  point,  however,  seems  to  be  reasonably  well  established. 
It  was  first  seen  by  Ewald  that  vv.  ""^^  do  not  originally  belong 
to  the  present  context,  which  they  interrupt.  With  this  point  we 
may  start.  The  whole  chapter  deals  with  the  religious  apostasy 
of  the  people,  except  in  vv.^^"^^  and  in  vv.  ^^-  ^^,  for  in  these  verses 
Israelitish  politics  are  treated.  Elsewhere  the  lovers  who  are 
causing  the  people  to  forsake  Yahweh  are  the  local  deities,  in 
these  latter  verses  the  lovers  are  the  nations  on  the  banks  of  the 
Euphrates  and  of  the  Nile.  In  subject-matter  therefore  vv.  ""^* 
and  w.^*'-  ^^  belong  together  and  they  must  originally  have  stood 
together,  so  that  besides  vv.  ""^^  (Ewald,  Cornill)  also  vv.  ^^-  ^^-  ^^ 
are  not  original  in  their  present  connection.     They  owe  their 

*  Erbt  believes  its  insertion  here  was  due  to  an  editor  who  placed  the  two 
visions,  vv.  '^  '^  and  vv.  '^  »,  together  because  they  have  the  same  literary 
form  "What  seest  thou?"  (Stichwort  theory). 


26  EXEGETICAL  NOTES   ON  JEREMIAH 

present  position  to  a  redactor,  but  not  their  composition,  for  they 
are  doubtless  of  Jeremian  authorship.  As  Hosea  and  Isaiah 
before,  so  Jeremiah  saw  in  foreign  alliances  a  defection  from 
Yahweh. 

It  is  apparent  that  w.  ^®-  ^^  do  not  continue  the  immediately 
preceding  verses,  for  they  treat  of  something  different.  It  is 
equally  apparent  that  v.  ^^  belongs  with  vv. """,  however  difficult 
and  enigmatical  the  passage  may  seem  to  become  by  this  con- 
nection. Indeed,  here  is  the  crux  inter pretum.  Yet  if  it  is 
recognized  that  w.  ""^®  and  vv.  ^^-  "  belong  together  and  that 
vv.  ^®-  ^^  continue  the  thought  of  vv.  ""^^,  the  difficulties  will  to 
a  large  extent,  if  not  altogether,  disappear.  This  can  best  be 
demonstrated  by  reproducing  the  original  passage  and  elucidat- 
ing it  by  a  brief  paraphrase. 

**  Is  Israel  a  servant  ?  is  he  a  home-bom  (slave)  ? 
Why  then  is  he  become  a  prey  ? 

*^  Against  him  the  young  lions  roared,* 
they  uttered  their  voice; 
And  they  made  his  land  a  desolation,  f 
without  inhabitant. 

"  The  children  also  of  Noph  and  Tahpanhes 
shaved  off  %  the  crown  of  thy  head. 

"  Has  X  not  procured  this  to  thee 

thy  forsaking  of  Yahweh  thy  God? 

*^  And  now,  § — what  is  the  use  of  going  to  Egypt 
to  drink  the  waters  of  the  Shihor? 
Or  what  is  the  use  of  going  to  Assyria 
to  drink  the  waters  of  the  River? 

'*  How  exceedingly  easy  it  is  for  thee 
to  change  thy  way ! 
Thou  shalt  be  put  to  shame  by  Egypt  also, 
as  thou  wast  put  to  shame  by  Assyria. 

*  The  perfect  is  to  be  read  here. 

t  The  Hebrew  text  adds  here  "his  cities  are  burnt  up."  Duhm  places  this 
at  the  end  of  v.  14.  %  The  perfect  is  to  be  restored  here  also. 

§  Not  temporal  but  logical  use  of  "and  now,"  of.  Ps.  2'°. 


EXEGETICAL   NOTES   ON   JEREMIAH  27 

^'  Thou  shalt  go  forth  from  him  also, 
with  thy  hands  upon  thy  head: 
For  Yahweh  has  rejected  thy  confidences 
and  thou  shalt  not  prosper  in  them. 

Is  not  Israel  Yahweh's  son?  Of  course  he  is!  How  is  it  then 
possible  that  he  should  be  in  slavery  ?  (v.  ").  And  yet  it  is  so. 
The  Assyrians  attacked  him  and  devastated  his  land  (v.  ^^). 
And  the  Egyptians  have  subjected  him  also  (v.  ^*').*  Do  you  not 
know  that  these  ignominious  experiences  were  due  to  your  de- 
fection from  Yahweh  (v.  ^^)  ?  Since  this  is  so,  what  is  or  has  been 
the  use  of  your  political  policy  of  turning  to  Egypt  or  to  Assyria 
for  help  (v.  ^^)  ?  Ha !  how  vacillating  that  policy  of  yours  is ! 
How  quickly  and  easily  you  change  it !  Only  a  little  while  ago 
you  trusted  in  Assyria  to  help  you  (against  Egypt).  The  folly 
of  it !  And  now  you  trust  in  Egypt  to  help  you  (against  Baby- 
lonia)— with  any  better  result,  do  you  think?  No,  you  will  see, 
your  present  alliance  with  Egypt  will  end  in  humiliation  and 
despair  just  as  your  friendship  with  Assyria  did  before.  They 
cannot  help  you,  because  Yahweh  has  rejected  them  (vv.  ^^-  ^^). 

There  is  nothing  forced  in  this  interpretation.  Everything 
has  its  full  and  natural  significance.  Vv.  ^*-  *^  refer  to  the 
Assyrians,  as  is  generally  recognized.  V.  ^'^  refers  to  the  defeat 
of  Josiah  by  Pharaoh  Necho  at  Megiddo  in  608  B.C.,  and  is 
a  past  experience  just  as  v.  ^^,  not  a  present  or  future.  V.  ^^ 
is  general;  it  speaks  of  the  whole  political  policy  of  the  nation, 
not  of  a  particular  episode.  And  vv.  ^^-  "  draw  the  conclusion. 
Bitterly  Jeremiah  ridicules  their  quick  and  easy  changing  from 
one  to  the  other  of  the  great  powers.  Before  it  w^as  Assyria,  just 
now  it  is  Egypt.  But  soon  they  will  learn  by  bitter  experience 
the  folly  of  relying  on  human  powers. 

The  date  of  the  verses  is  plainly  indicated  by  this.  It  is  the 
time  of  alliance  with  Egypt  for  the  final  rebellion  against  Babylon 
which  ended  in  Jerusalem's  destruction  in  586  B.C. 

The  reason  why  the  redactor  connected  these  verses  with  chap. 
2  appears  to  be  that  to  him  the  two  sets  of  lovers,  the  one  the 
nature  gods,  the  other  the  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  empires,  seemed 
to  belong  together. 

*  Shaving  off  the  crown  of  the  head  was  a  sign  of  slavery. 


28  EXEGETICAL  NOTES   ON   JEREMIAH 

How  vv.  ""^^  and  vv.  ^^-  ^^  became  separated  we  cannot  telL 
Perhaps  accidentally  by  being  written  in  the  space  between  the 
columns,  vv.  "'^^  in  one  row,  vv.  ^®-  ^^  in  the  following.* 

3.   The  Two  Lamentations  in  9^^'^^ 

These  verses  contain  not  only  one  but  two  lamentations. 
They  were  originally  not  connected  but  independent  of  each 
other,  and  even  seem  to  come  from  different  periods  in  Jeremiah's 
ministry.  The  first  section,  vv.  ^^'^^  (E.  V.  vv.  ^^■"),  is  not  an 
introduction  to  the  second,  w.  ^^"^^  (E.  V.  vv.  20-22^^  ^^  jg  usually 
thought,  but  an  independent  piece,  complete  in  itself.  Vv.  ^^"^^ 
(E.  V.  vv.  ^°'^^)  is  a  different  piece,  also  independent  and  com- 
plete in  itself. 

In  vv.  ^""^^  Jeremiah  summons  the  professional  mourning 
women  to  come  and  sing  a  moving  dirge.  Let  them  hasten  and 
sing !  In  his  imagination  he  sees  them  coming,  and  so  he  calls 
out:  "Harkjf  wailing  is  heard  out  of  Zion!"  Then  follows 
directly  the  song  of  the  women: 

"  How  are  we  spoiled !  we  are  put  greatly  to  shame ! — 
for  we  have  forsaken  the  land, 
for  we  are  flung  out  of  our  dwellings !  J 

Here  the  song  ends.     Dirges  are  usually  brief. 

In  the  following  verse  something  new  begins.  It  is  not  con- 
nected with  the  preceding,  though  an  editor  joined  both  together 
by  "for"  which  must  be  omitted  with  Duhm  and  Giesebrecht. 
Jeremiah  calls  the  Jewish  women  and  teaches  them  a  lamenta- 
tion, which  they  in  turn  are  to  teach  their  daughters,  so  that  all 
Jewish  women  may  know  how  to  sing  it.     It  is  not  the  profes- 

*  This  was  written  before  the  writer  knew  that  Erbt  also  separates  w.  "  '* 
and  vv.  ^e.  37  from  their  present  context  and  that  he  also  connects  vv.  ^-  " 
with  V.  >8.  But  Erbt  makes  two  oracles  of  them,  vv.  "'«,  omitting  v.  >'  as 
secondary,  and  vv.  "•  ^e  37_  He  tries  thus  to  evade  the  difficulty  of  v.  »'  in 
connection  with  v.  •«  by  regarding  v.  '^  as  belonging  to  a  different  piece. 
His  dating  no  less  than  his  interpretation  differs  from  the  one  given  above. 
But  the  point  that  vv.  ".  37  are  connected  with  v.  >«  reached  independently 
by  both  of  us  heightens  its  probability. 

t  Omit  ''-.  at  the  beginning  of  v.  '*.  Rothstein  omits  ^^P  ''^  for  metrical 
reasons. 

X  M.  T.  has  "for  they  have  flung  down  our  dwellings."  Better  read  with 
Comill,  SBOT,  irnur^-cD  iJ3!?'f n,  cf.  <&. 


EXEGETICAL   NOTES   ON   JEREMIAH  29 

sional  mourners  who  are  called  and  instructed  here,  but  the 
women  in  general.*  After  this  brief  introduction  (v.  ^^,  E.  V,  v.  ^*') 
Jeremiah  sings  to  them  that  mournful  song  of  aw^esome  beauty, 
the  song  of  the  harvester  Death,  vv.  ^^-  ^'  (E.  V.  vv.  ^*-  ^^). 

It  is  only  when  it  is  realized  that  there  are  two  independent 
pieces,  vv.  ^"'^^  and  vv.  ^^''^,  that  the  whole  passage  can  be  inter- 
preted easily  and  naturally.  Cornill  has  felt  the  difficulty  of  the 
usual  interpretation,  for  to  his  mind  "  this  TiJ  [in  v.  *^]  weak- 
ens, yea  destroys  even,  the  impression  of  the  wonderful  r\y''p 
w.  ^°-  ^\"  And  so  he  takes  the  radical  step  of  omitting  v.  ^ 
(E.  V.  V.  ^^)  as  secondary.  But  surely  this  is  going  too  far. 
Giesebrecht  tries  to  obviate  the  difficulty  by  transposing  v.  ^^. 
He  clearly  sees  that  this  extra  introduction  coming  in  between 
the  tw^o  parts  of  the  one  lamentation  which  he  assumes  is  awkward 
and  impossible.  Rothstein,  in  the  third  edition  of  Kau.,  Heilige 
Schrift  des  A.  T.,  1910,  is  the  only  one  who  seems  to  have  seen 
the  way  of  the  true  solution,  for  he  says  concerning  vv.  ^^-  ^^• 
"perhaps  they  give  a  separate  little  dirge."  But  he  does  not 
follow  out  his  suggestion. 

One  other  point  may  be  noticed.  The  situation  of  these  two 
lamentations  does  not  appear  to  be  the  same.  At  first  it  may 
seem  as  if  it  were,  and  that  was  evidently  the  reason  why  the 
editor  joined  them  together.  In  reality  the  first  anticipates — 
not  presupposes,  since  both  are  prophetic — the  fall  and  ruin  of 
Jerusalem,  and  also  the  exile, "  for  we  have  forsaken  the  land."t 
This  excludes  the  Scythian  period  and  shows  that  it  belongs  to 
the  Babylonian,  though  precisely  at  what  particular  date  it  is 
to  be  placed  we  cannot  tell.     The  second  lamentation,  on  the 

*  Duhm  has  noticed  this,  without  however  perceiving  its  full  significance. 
The  other  commentators  think  that  the  professional  mourning  women  are 
still  meant. 

t  Duhm  omits  this  clause  somewhat  arbitrarily  as  a  later  addition.  He 
says:  "The  sentence,  for  we  have  forsaken  the  land,  is  an  uncommonly  stupid 
insertion;  he  who  has  forsaken  can  no  longer  lament  in  Zion;  our  present  or 
future  would  surely  not  have  been  expressed  by  the  perfect.  And  anyhow 
one  does  not  call  mourning  women  when  one  goes  into  exile."  But  the  song 
is,  of  course,  prophetic  and  the  sentence,  Hark,  wailing  is  heard  out  of  Zion! 
does  not  belong  to  the  lamentation  itself,  but  is  introductory  to  it.  The 
mourning  women  are  singing  now.  Jeremiah  hears  them  singing  in  Zion 
where  his  imagination  places  them.  He  calls  attention  to  their  song  which 
speaks  of  what  the  fate  of  the  Juda'ans  will  soon  be. 


30  EXEGETICAL  NOTES   ON  JEREMIAH 

Other  hand,  would  fit  the  Scythian  period  very  well,  though  it 
must  be  admitted  that  there  is  nothing  in  it  that  would  militate 
against  the  Babylonian  period.  But  even  if  both  come  from  the 
same  time — the  date  is  not  a  very  important  point  in  our  argu- 
ment— we  may  and  must  insist  that  they  are  two  different 
lamentations. 

4.   The  Parable  of  the  Rotten  Girdle,  13^'" 

The  story  is  told  in  such  a  way  that  we  think  at  once  of  it  as 
a  description  of  an  actual  event.  But  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
any  of  his  hearers  took  Jeremiah  literally.  The  difference  be- 
tween our  Western  mind  and  the  picture-loving  Eastern  mind 
must  not  be  overlooked  so  as  to  deny  the  parabolic  character  of 
the  story.  The  arguments  against  the  interpretation  which  takes 
it  as  the  story  of  an  actual  double  journey  to  the  Euphrates  are, 
to  the  mind  of  the  present  writer,  convincing. 

The  main  point  of  the  parable  is  that  the  girdle  was  corrupted 
by  the  influence  of  the  Euphrates.  Jeremiah  desired  to  illustrate 
the  corrupting  effects  of  the  power  of  the  Euphrates  valley  on 
Judah.  It  is  evident  that  it  is  not  the  Babylonian  exile  which  is 
referred  to  here,  but  the  moral  and  religious  influences  which  had 
such  a  debasing  effect  on  Judah. 

Cornill  has  rightly  seen  all  this,  but  has  then  drawn  the  con- 
clusion that  the  interpretation  which  is  appended  in  w.  ^""  is 
not  genuine  because  it  misunderstands  the  parable  of  w.  ^"^. 
There  is  an  element  of  truth  in  Cornill's  argument.  But  the 
solution  of  the  difficulty  may  be  attempted  in  another,  less  radical, 
manner.  It  will  probably  be  admitted  that  after  reading  vv.  ^"^ 
we  expect  an  interpretation  of  the  parable  by  the  prophet  himself. 
The  explanation  which  is  given  in  vv.  *'"  does  indeed,  as  Cornill 
rightly  says,  not  bring  out  the  essential  point  of  the  symbolism 
correctly.  But  this  can  be  remedied  by  a  small  textual  emenda- 
tion which  makes  vv.  ^-  ^^  read  as  follows:  "  After  this  manner  have 
the  excellence  of  Judah  and  the  excellence  of  Jerusalem  become 
marred  *  and  have  become  t  as  this  girdle  which  is  profitable  for 

*  Read  nnu-j  for  hn  n-'na'N.  n.s  is  due  to  dittography  and  was  then  repeated 
before  the  second  P^J  to  bring  it  into  conformity  with  the  first, 
t  Punctuate  '■"'V-  for  "'''^''^- 


EXEGETICAL   NOTES  ON  JEREMIAH  31 

nothing."  V,  ^°*  from  "this  evil  people"  to  "worship  them" 
is  an  editorial  expansion*  which  explains  not  incorrectly  the 
meaning  of  the  corruption.  The  Greek  Version  did  not  yet  have 
the  clause  "  that  walk  in  the  stubbornness  of  their  heart." 

If  this  suggestion  is  adopted,  we  can  retain  with  good  con- 
science not  only  v\.  ^"'  as  Jeremian — thanks  to  Erbt's  and  Cor- 
nill's  valiant  defense — but  also  vv.  ^"",  which  Cornill  feels  com- 
pelled to  give  up  as  secondary.  And  it  will  be  noticed  that  vv. 
^^  ^-  follow  with  much  appropriateness  and  force,  bringing  out 
the  thought  of  the  punishment  that  was  so  sure  to  come  as  the 
result  of  this  corruption. 

5.   The  Lesson  from  the  Potter,  18*'^^ 

The  lesson  which  Jeremiah  learned  from  the  potter  is  this: 
As  a  potter  who  moulds  and  fashions  the  clay  into  a  vessel  on 
the  wheel  does  not  throw  the  clay  away  when  the  vessel  for  some 
reason  or  other  is  marred,  but  tries  again  to  mould  and  fashion 
it  until  it  becomes  a  vessel  such  as  he  wants,  so  does  Yahweh 
deal  with  his  people  Israel.  Israel  has  indeed  thwarted  Yahweh's 
plan  and  has  become  spoiled,  but  Yahweh  does  not  therefore 
throw  it  away  as  utterly  useless,  but  takes  it  again  and  tries  to 
mould  and  fashion  it  once  more,  according  to  his  plan. — It  is  not 
the  sovereignty  of  the  creator  and  ruler  of  the  world  which  is 
illustrated  by  the  work  of  the  potter,  but  the  persistency  of  his 
purpose.  The  potter  may  be  unsuccessful  for  a  while,  but  he 
does  not  give  up  his  endeavor.  He  tries  again  until  his  purpose 
is  accomplished. 

It  is  impossible  to  miss  this  point,  when  one  reads  only  vv.  ^■^, 
And  it  is  a  very  beautiful  truth  indeed.  But  unfortunately, 
vv.  '''^^  which  immediately  follow  are  usually  taken  as  the  inter- 
pretation and  application  of  vv.  i-'(*'^,  and  thus  one  of  the  finest 
passages  of  Jeremiah  has  usually  been  misinterpreted.  For 
vv.  ^'*^  are  not  Jeremiah's  interpretation  of  vv.  ^'^  they  speak 
of  something  entirely  different,  their  theme  is  the  moral  condition 
of  every  prediction,  and  they  do  not  belong  to  the  story  of  the 
potter's  vessel  at  all.  If  they  did  not  happen  to  stand  directly 
after  vv.  ^''^  nobody  would  ever  have  thought  of  regarding  them 

*  So  also  Erbt. 


32  EXEGETICAL  NOTES  ON  JEREMIAH 

as  the  explanation  of  the  story.  The  editor  put  them  there 
probably  because  they  have  the  element  of  hopefulness  in  com- 
mon with  vv.  ^"^.  Originally  they  had  no  connection  whatever. 
Cornill,  who  of  modern  writers  has  brought  out  best  the  real 
meaning  of  the  lesson,  unfortunately  takes  vv.  ^"^^  as  the  in- 
tended explanation,  but  is  consistent  enough  to  declare  that  this 
explanation  misses  the  essential  meaning  of  vv.  ^"*,  and  so  re- 
jects them  as  well  as  vv.  ^-  *  as  secondary.  But  he  has  to  admit 
that  there  is  no  other  reason  for  regarding  them  as  secondary 
but  that  they  interpret  vv.  *"*  wrongly.*  When  it  is  once  seen 
that  vv.  ^"^  and  vv.  '"^^  are  independent  of  one  another,  there  is 
no  reason  for  rejecting  either  vv.  ^"^  or  vv.  '"^^  f,  or  both,  as  Duhm 
does,  as  non-Jeremian. 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 
July,  1910. 

*  CorniU's  treatment  of  this  passage  is  similar  to  that  of  11'  ". 
t  Erbt  regards  vv.*®  as  genuine  but  interprets  them  as  referring  to  Israel's 
rejection  by  Yahweh.     Vv.  '""  he  assigns  to  the  redactor. 


IV 

THE  RETURN  OF  THE  JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS 

By  Edward  L.  Curtis 

The  true  course  of  events,  when  data  concerning  the  past  are 
both  meagre  and  unreliable,  is  very  difficult  to  determine.  This 
is  the  situation  in  regard  to  the  question  of  the  return  of  the 
Jews  under  Cyrus.  This  return  has  usually  been  received  as 
an  unquestioned  fact  of  history.  The  first  doubts  of  an  impres- 
sive character  cast  upon  the  event  were  those  of  Kosters.*  He 
argued  very  strongly,  especially  from  the  silence  of  the  books  of 
Haggai  and  Zechariah,  that  there  was  no  such  return  of  the 
Jews.  But  his  conclusion  has  met  with  no  general  acceptance. 
Wellhausen,  Edward  Meyer,  George  Adam  Smith,  not  to  men- 
tion others,  have  been  unconvinced,  and  have  written  strongly  in 
favor  of  the  return.f  But  now  more  recently  Prof.  C,  C.  Torrey 
has  not  only  come  forward  maintaining  the  position  of  Kosters, 
but  also  proposes  a  far  more  radical  reconstruction  of  Jewish 
history.  He  says:  "There  was  no  return  of  the  exiles,  no  scribe 
potentate  Ezra,  no  wholesale  expulsion  of  Gentile  wives  and 
children,"   and  maintains   that   the   Jewish  community  in   the 

*  Het  Herstel  van  Israel  in  het  Perzische  Tijdvak.  1894.  Translated  by 
Basedow,  Die  Wiederherstellung  Israels  in  der  Persischen  Periode.     1895. 

t  Wellhausen,  Die  Riickkehr  der  Juden  aus  detn  Babylonischen  Exil,  in 
Nachrichten  von  der  Konigl.  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaften  zu  Gottingen.  1895. 
Meyer,  Die  Entstehung  des  Judenthums.  1896.  G.  A.  Smith,  The  Book  of  the 
Twelve  Prophets,  ii,  1898,  chap.  xv.  Bertholet,  Kurzer  Hand  Commentar  (Mart.), 
Die  Biicher  Esra  und  Nehemia.  1902.  Siegfried,  Handkommentar  (Nowack), 
Die  Biicher  Esra-Nehemiah.  1902.  Guthe,  Israel,  Encyclopedia  Bihlica. 
1901.  Driver,  Century  Bible,  Haggai,  1906,  and  scholars  generally.  H.  P. 
Smith,  Old  Testament  History,  1903,  and  Torrey,  Ezra  Studies,  1910,  reject 
the  return. 

33 


34  THE   KETURN  OF  THE   JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS 

Persian  period  was  no  narrow  and  legalistic  one,  but  endowed 
with  the  spirit  of  the  eariier  prophets,  their  religious  life  being  a 
continual  development  of  that  of  the  monarchy.* 

The  account  of  the  return  of  the  Jews  under  Cyrus  is  given 
only  in  the  combined  books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  In  the 
latter  it  is  only  mentioned  incidentally  (Ne.  7''  ^•),  while  in  the 
former  (chapters  1-6)  the  subject  is  treated  somewhat  in  detail: 
We  have  the  decree  of  Cyrus  whereby  the  movement  was  inaugu- 
rated, the  list  of  the  restored  furniture  of  the  Temple,  the  list  of 
the  people  who  returned,  and  an  account  of  the  setting  up  of  the 
altar  at  Jerusalem,  of  the  laying  the  foundation  of  the  Temple, 
and  of  the  frustration  of  the  work  of  the  building  through  the 
opposition  of  the  people  of  the  land  until  under  the  impulse  of 
the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah  the  work  was  renewed  and 
in  spite  of  renewed  opposition,  under  royal  patronage  caused  by 
the  discovery  of  a  decree  of  Cyrus,  the  Temple  was  finally  com- 
pleted in  the  sixth  year  of  the  reign  of  Darius. 

The  appearance  of  this  narrative  with  all  these  details  in  the 
Books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  compels  at  once  careful  scrutiny, 
because  these  books  are  a  composition  of  the  Chronicler,  and  the 
Chronicler,  judged  from  the  Books  of  Chronicles,  is  a  thoroughly 
untrustworthy  historian.  Indeed,  he  is  scarcely  worthy  of  being 
called  a  historian,  because  while  making  use  of  ancient  narratives 
he  did  not  hesitate  to  modify  them,  and  he  drew  upon  his  own 
imagination  very  largely  for  his  pictures  of  the  past.  The  Books 
of  Chronicles,  taken  as  a  whole,  are  an  ecclesiastical  romance. 
Thus  the  Chronicler  glorified  David's  career  by  creating  for  him 
at  Ziglag  an  army  of  most  surprising  warriors,  and  making  him 
the  provider  of  an  immense  mass  of  costly  material  for  the  build- 
ing of  Solomon's  Temple,  and  the  organizer  of  the  personnel  of 
its  service.  The  Chronicler  fabricated  numbers  and  lists  of 
names,  letters  and  speeches.  His  narratives,  when  especially 
concerned  with  the  worship  of  Yahweh,  are  always  open  to  sus- 
picion, and  for  acceptance  need  the  confirmation  of  other  testi- 
mony. From  this  point  of  view,  then,  the  record  of  the  return  of 
the  Jews  must  be  examined.f 

*  Op.  cit.,  pp.  ix,  311  ff. 

t  For  the  Chronicler  as  a  writer  of  history  see  International  Critical  Com- 
mentary on  the  Books  of  Chronicles,  pp.  7  ff. 


THE  RETURN  OF  THE  JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS       35 

The  account  opens  with  the  decree  of  Cyrus  in  which  he  is 
called  the  king  of  Persia  (Ezr,  1^"*),  but  in  the  authentic  decrees 
of  Cyrus  the  term  king  of  Persia  is  not  used  *;  and  there  is  also 
no  reason  to  believe  that  Cyrus  ever  revered  Yahweh  after  the 
words  of  this  decree,  saying:  "All  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth 
hath  Yahweh  the  God  of  Heaven  given  me."  Cyrus  might, 
however,  have  had  an  interest  in  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple. 
According  to  his  inscriptions  he  took  an  interest  in  restoring 
heathen  deities.f  But  this  decree  is  clearly  the  composition  of 
the  Chronicler. J 

The  list  of  gifts  of  Cyrus  which  follows  (Ezr,  1^"")  likewise 
bears  no  marks  of  historicity.  Such  an  enumeration,  "thirty 
platters  of  gold,  a  thousand  platters  of  silver,  nine  and  twenty 
knives,  etc.,"  is  characteristic  of  Old  Testament  legend.  An 
interesting  parallel  may  be  seen  in  the  offerings  for  the  tabernacle 
by  the  princes  of  Israel  in  Nu.  7.  This  list,  then,  has  every 
mark  of  the  Chronicler's  imagination. 

Next  in  the  narrative  is  the  roll  of  persons  and  families  who  are 
said  to  have  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  2).  This  list,  if 
genuine,  w^ould  confirm  the  return.  It  appears  also  in  Ne.  7^  ^•, 
where  it  is  said  to  have  been  found  by  Nehemiah  when  he  was 
searching  for  the  genealogies  of  the  people.  Its  connection  there 
with  the  memoirs  of  Nehemiah  (Ne.  1-6)  suggests  authenticity. 
In  favor  of  this  also  may  be  mentioned  the  enumeration  of  beasts 
of  burden  (Ezr.  2"^  ^•),  and  the  disallowment  of  the  claim  of 
Hakkoz  for  the  priesthood  (Ezr.  2^^^);  a  claim  apparently  later 
recognized  (Ne.  3*-  ^^).  On  the  other  hand  it  bears  far  more  the 
stamp  of  a  list  of  settlers  in  the  land  than  of  immigrants  entering. 
The  places  mentioned  are  clearly  those  of  the  Jewish  province. 
Some  of  the  persons  or  families  mentioned  seem  to  have  Persian 
names,  which  only  could  have  been  acquired  later. §  One  family 
is  expressly  called  the  house  of  Jeshua  (Ezr.  2^^),  and  since 
Jeshua  flourished  in  the  reign  of  Darius  Hystaspis,  his  house, 
numbering  nine  hundred  and  seventy-three,  must  have  belonged 

*  Driver,  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  New  York, 
1908,  p.  546. 

t  Bertholet,  op.  cit.,  p.  25. 

X  As  far  as  I  am  aware  this  is  disputed  by  no  one. 

§  Marquart,  Fundamente  israelitischer  und  jiidischer  Geschichte,  p.  35.  Well- 
hausen,  Israelitische  und  jiidische  Geschichte,  Vierte  Ausgabe,  p.  1G7. 


36  THE   RETURN   OF  THE   JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS 

to  a  later  period.  This  list,  then,  is  one  in  all  probability  of  the 
period  of  Nehemiah,  taken  from  his  memoirs,  and  in  his  memoirs 
labelled  by  the  Chronicler  as  a  list  of  the  returning  exiles,  and 
glossed  with  an  enumeration  of  beasts  of  burden.  Such  an  ap- 
propriation by  the  Chronicler  would  not  have  been  strange.  In 
his  history  of  David  he  constructed  monthly  captains  of  David's 
army  out  of  David's  mighty  men  recorded  in  the  Books  of 
Samuel  (I  Ch.  2V^-).  Hence  the  Chronicler,  finding  this  list  at 
hand,  might  readily  have  used  it  for  a  roll  of  the  returned.  No 
proper  evidence  then  can  be  drawn  from  this  list  for  the  return 
under  Cyrus.* 

The  narrative  of  the  laying  of  the  foundation  of  the  Temple 
in  the  second  year  of  the  return,  i.  e.,  the  third  year  of  Cyrus 
(Ezr.  3),  is  wholly  from  the  pen  of  the  Chronicler,  and  may  well 
in  all  its  detail,  be  a  product  of  his  imagination;  a  supposition 
which  is  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  the  books  of  Haggai 
and  Zechariah,  for  according  to  them,  the  founding  of  the 
second  Temple  took  place  in  the  reign  of  Darius  (Hag.  1**  ^-f  2*^, 
Zee.  4^). 

The  episode  of  the  opposition  to  the  work  of  rebuilding  the 
Temple,  with  the  letter  of  complaint  and  the  decree  which  caused 
its  cessation,  together  with  the  story  of  its  renewal,  under  the 
prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  and  of  the  renewed  opposition 
with  another  letter  of  complaint,  resulting  in  the  discovery  of  the 
decree  of  Cyrus,  and  thus  leading  to  a  decree  by  Darius  favoring 
the  building  of  the  Temple,  which  is  said  to  have  been  completed 
in  the  sixth  year  of  his  reign,  is  written,  with  the  exception  of  the 
introductory  verses,  in  Aramaic  (Ezr.  4-6^^),  and  this  Aramaic 
material,  especially  in  the  letters  and  decrees,  is  universally  rec- 
ognized as  taken  by  the  Chronicler  from  some  source.  These 
letters  and  decrees,  if  genuine,  would  confirm  in  large  measure  the 

*  The  Chronicler  may  indeed  have  fabricated  this  Hst.  This  would  be  in 
line  with  artificial  enumerations  of  Nu.  2-".  The  twelve  leaders  (Ezr.  2^, 
Ne.  3"),  the  combination  of  names  of  men  and  of  places,  and  the  introduction 
of  priests,  Levites,  singers,  and  gatekeepers  all  suggest  the  composition  of  the 
Chronicler.  The  text  also  abounds  with  many  of  his  expressions.  Hence  it 
has  been  inferred  that  "we  have  here  (and  in  Ne.  11,  which  is  the  immediate 
and  necessary  sequel)  tables  compiled  by  the  Chronicler  according  to  his 
usual  purpose  and  method,  with  the  aim  of  giving  the  exact  statistical  basis 
of  the  restored  community."  Torrey,  The  Composition  and  Historical  Value 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  pp.  39-42. 


THE   RETURN  OF  THE   JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS  37 

story  of  the  return.  But,  whether  they  are  genuine  or  not,  in  this 
connection  is  given  a  glaring  illustration  of  the  Chronicler's  utter 
ignorance  or  unconcern  of  the  actual  course  of  events  of  which  he 
is  treating.  Having  written  that  the  Jews  returned  and  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  Temple  in  the  reign  of  Cyrus,  he  speaks  of  the 
opposition  to  them  continuing  during  all  the  days  of  Cyrus  even 
until  the  reign  of  Darius,  and  of  an  accusation  written  in  the  reign 
of  Xerxes,  and  then  again  in  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  (Ezr.  4*^). 
He  thus  confused  Darius  I.,  Hystaspis,  in  whose  reign  the  second 
Temple  was  built  with  Darius  II.,  Nothus,  of  a  century  later, 
whose  predecessors  were  Xerxes  and  Artaxerxes. 

The  authenticity  of  these  letters  and  decrees  has  been  especially 
defended  by  the  historian  Eduard  Meyer,  and  through  the  weight 
of  his  authority  has  been  widely  accepted.*  His  argument  is 
derived  from  internal  evidence,  but  is  far  from  convincing.  The 
language,  he  thinks,  from  the  occurrence  of  Persian  words,  points 
to  an  original  Persian  document  here  rendered  into  Aramaic, 
but  as  Wellhausen  has  well  pointed  out,  in  this  manner  one  could 
prove  that  half  of  Daniel,  and  a  great  part  of  the  Syrian  literature, 
were  originally  written  in  Persian. f 

A  striking  evidence  for  genuineness  in  the  decree  of  Cyrus, 
Meyer  finds  in  the  fact  that  the  decree  is  said  to  have  been  dis- 
covered in  Ecbatana  instead  of  Babylon  (Ezr.  6^).  A  fabricator 
he  thinks  would  surely  have  placed  it  in  the  latter  city.  But 
why  so?  A  fabricator  might  well  have  imagined  the  roll  in 
Ecbatana  as  well  as  in  Babylon.  If  in  Babylon,  why  so  easily 
forgotten  ? 

"  If  fabricated,  the  fabrication,"  says  Meyer,  "  is  wonderfully 
skilful  and  entirely  different  from  the  patent  inventions  of  the 
Chronicler  and  like-minded  writers."  The  Chronicler's  inven- 
tions are  often  patent,  but  yet  often  not  more  seemingly  so  than 
these  letters.  The  correspondence  between  Hiram  and  Solomon, 
derived,  it  is  true,  in  part  from  I.  Kings,  is  well  done  (II.  Chr.  2^'^*). 
But  we  are  not  confined  to  the  Books  of  Chronicles  for  such  in- 
ventions; they  appear  in  other  Jewish  literature — the  Books  of 
Maccabees  and  the  works  of  Josephus.  And,  moreover,  Meyer's 
skilful  fabrication  does  not  appear  in  these  letters  and  decrees  as 
they  now  stand.     He  only  finds  it  by  removing  the  plain  marks 

*  Op.  cit.,  pp.  8-70.  t  GoUingische  gelehrte  Ameigen,  1897,  p.  90. 


38  THE   RETURN  OF  THE   JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS 

of  fabrication.  He  says  they  have  been  tampered  with  and  are  no 
longer  in  their  original  form.  The  date,  for  example,  is  lacking  in 
the  letter  of  Darius.  "It  is  called  'a  roll  in  which  was  written.'" 
"It  may,"  says  Meyer,  "have  been  more  or  less  abbreviated." 
Meyer  brackets  6^"*^,  saying  "  those  words  are  of  a  later  hand  of 
Jewish  zeal."  (Why  not  then  a  mark  of  the  entire  decree  coming 
from  such  a  source  ?)  And  the  letter  written  for  Ezra  (Ezr.  7^^'^"), 
which  he  also  considers  authentic,  is  of  such  Jewish  coloring  that 
Meyer  is  forced  to  the  explanation  that  Ezra  and  his  friends  pre- 
pared the  original  draft  for  the  king.*  These  concessions  greatly 
weaken  his  arguments  for  authenticity. 

Meyer  also  says  he  cannot  comprehend  for  what  purpose  any 
one  would  take  the  trouble  to  fabricate  such  documents.f  But 
the  purpose  is  close  at  hand — to  teach  a  lesson  of  providential 
care,  and  to  magnify  the  Jews.  This  appears  in  the  dramatic 
force  and  unity  of  the  letters  and  decrees.  A  letter  of  complaint 
is  written  against  the  Jews,  with  a  call  for  a  search  of  royal 
records  to  determine  whether  the  city  had  not  been  rebellious, 
and  therefore  its  rebuilding  should  cease.  Such  search  is  made, 
such  records  are  found,  and  the  rebuilding  is  prohibited.  This 
is  the  first  act.     The  adversaries,  or  the  wicked,  triumph  (Ezr.  4). 

Then  comes  the  second  act  when,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
prophets,  the  work  is  renewed,  and  a  second  letter  of  complaint 
is  written,  with  another  call  for  search  of  records  to  determine 
whether  Cyrus  had  ever  decreed  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple. 
This  search  is  made  and  such  a  decree  is  found,  and  as  a  result 
great  favor,  by  royal  decree,  is  shown  to  the  Jews,  while  their 
adversaries  are  completely  discomfited  and  commanded  even  to 
assist  them  (Ezr.  S-e^*').  Thus  the  righteous  triumphed.  This 
story  with  its  letters  and  royal  decrees  and  climax  resembles 
those  of  Esther  and  Daniel,  and  suggests  a  similar  origin.  J  And 
finally,    through    the    recently    discovered    Assuan-Elephantine 

*  Op.  cit.,  pp.  49,  51,  65.  t  Op.  cit.,  p.  43. 

X  Dramatic  unity,  however,  is  not  found  in  the  actual  events  if  the  docu- 
ments are  genuine,  because  in  that  case  the  first  letter,  since  addressed  to 
Artaxerxes,  referred  not  at  all  to  the  building  of  the  Temple,  but  to  an  assumed 
attempt  to  rebuild  the  walls  one  hundred  years  later,  and  has  its  present 
position  and  reference  through  the  misunderstanding  of  the  Chronicler.  In 
favor  of  this  interpretation  is  the  fact  that  the  Temple  is  not  specifically  men- 
tioned in  the  first  correspondence  (Ezr.  4""--)  but  only  the  city  and  its  walls. 


THE  RETURN  OF  THE  JEWS  UNDER  CYRUS       39 

papyri  linguistic  evidence  seems  to  be  at  hand  proving  con- 
clusively that  this  Aramaic  section  was  written  near  the  period 
of  the  Chronicler.*  The  genuineness  then  of  these  letters  and 
decrees  is  certainly  so  doubtful  that  they  have  little  or  no  place 
as  evidence  for  the  return  of  the  Jews  under  Cyrus. 

We  turn  now  from  the  Books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  whose  testi- 
mony is  so  unsatisfactory,  to  those  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  writ- 
ten some  twenty  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus. 
These  speak  clearly  of  the  building  of  the  Temple  under  Jeshua  and 
Zerubbabel  in  the  reign  of  Darius,  and  thus  confirm  the  Chron- 
icler's statement  of  that  event  (Ezr.  1^  *•,  6";  indeed  probably 
from  these  books  the  Chronicler  or  his  Aramaic  source  obtained 
the  information),  but  in  no  other  particular  do  they  confirm  the 
Chronicler's  story.  The  books  are  entirely  silent  concerning  any 
return  some  seventeen  years  or  more  previous.  The  people  are 
addressed,  not  as  though  they  had  lately  entered  the  land,  but  as 
though  they  were  a  remnant  left  in  the  land.  They  are  called  "  the 
remnant  of  the  people,"  "the  people  of  the  land."  This  is  in  sharp 
contrast  to  the  language  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  where  the  com- 
munity who  built  the  Temple  are  called  "the  children  of  the 
captivity,"  and  are  put  in  contrast  to  "the  people  of  the  land." 
Not  a  word  also  is  said  of  any  previous  laying  of  the  corner-stone 
of  the  Temple,  or  of  any  opposition  which  hindered  its  construc- 
tion, or  of  any  royal  patronage  favoring  the  work.  This  silence 
is  certainly  very  remarkable  if  these  events  happened. 

The  story  of  the  return  of  the  Jews  under  Cyrus,  then,  may  be 
pure  fiction ;  a  tale  which  early  grew  out  of  the  feeling  of  gratitude 
for  Cyrus's  conquest  of  Babylon,  and  was  especially  provoked  by 
the  allusions  in  II.  Isaiah  to  Cyrus  as  a  Messiah  and  builder  of 
the  city  (Is.  44^^,  45*-  ").  The  form  of  the  story,  remembering 
that  it  was  written  two  centuries  after  the  events  w^hich  it  de- 
scribes, when  there  was  bitter  hostility  between  the  Jews  and 
Samaritans,  has  a  ready  explanation.  The  one  fixed  fact  of 
history  incorporated  into  it,  drawn  from  the  Books  of  Haggai 
and  Zechariah,  is  the  building  of  the  Temple  in  the  reign  of 
Darius.  This  Darius,  as  already  mentioned,  was  held  to  have 
been  Darius  II.,  Nothus,  who  reigned  more  than  a  century  after 
*  Torrey,  Ezra  Studies,  pp.  161  ff. 


40  THE   RETURN  OF  THE   JEWS   UNDER  CYRUS 

Cyrus.*  Hence  if  the  Jews  started  the  Temple,  as  in  the  Chron- 
icler's conception  they  surely  would  have,  immediately  on  their 
return,  how  did  it  happen  that  the  building  was  so  long  delayed  ? 
The  answer  is  at  hand.  It  was  through  the  hostility  of  the 
Samaritans.  Thus  the  tale  took  its  appropriate  dramatic  form. 
Yet  in  spite  of  all  these  facts  certain  things  suggest  the  reality 
of  a  return.  The  preservation  of  prophecies  mentioned  con- 
cerning Cyrus,  suggest  that  they  had  been  fulfilled  in  some  such 
way.f  The  poverty-stricken  remnant  left  in  the  land  would 
seem  to  require  an  impulse  from  without  for  the  revival  of  in- 
terest in  the  Temple  culminating  in  the  movement  inaugurated 
by  Haggai  and  Zechariah.J  The  return  need  not  have  been 
mentioned  in  the  short  discourses  of  those  prophets.  The  spir- 
ituality of  their  appeal  may  have  caused  silence  in  reference  to 
royal  patronage  and  hostile  efforts. §  What  also  was  more  inevi- 
table than  a  return  if,  according  to  the  Books  of  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel,  the  choicest  portion  of  Israel  was  in  captivity?  Could 
the  men  whose  passion  for  Jerusalem  was  that  of  Ps.  137  have 
been  restrained  from  returning  to  Jerusalem  ?  Cyrus,  from  all 
that  is  known  of  Persian  policy,  would  not  only  have  permitted, 
but  probably  have  favored,  such  a  return.  Thus  it  is  not  impos- 
sible that  there  was  some  sort  of  a  return  of  the  Jews  under 
Cyrus,  but  the  evidence  for  it  is  very  slight,  and  we  have  no 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Chronicler's  account  is  anything  else 
than  imaginary. 

Yale  Divinity  School, 
July  26,  1910. 

*  Darius  I.  Hystaspis  probably  had  been  confused  with  or  transformed  into 
Darius  the  Mede,  mentioned  in  Daniel  and  placed  before  Cyrus. 

t  Kuenen.  J  Wellhausen.  §  George  Adam  Smith. 


THE  SONS  OF  KORAH 
By  John  P.  Peters 

In  dedicating  this  brief  Biblical  essay  to  him  who  has  reached 
the  Biblical  age,  I  have  taken  as  my  theme  a  topic  suggested  by 
the  study  of  a  book  on  which  he  has  been  the  last  great  commen- 
tator, the  Book  of  Psalms. 

The  Psalter  of  the  sons  of  Korah  is  "  on  the  whole  the  choicest 
collection  in  the  Psalter  from  a  literary  point  of  view."  *  Who 
are  the  sons  of  Korah? 

According  to  the  genealogy  of  the  Priest  Code,t  Korah  was  a 
descendant  (grandson)  of  Kohath.  According  to  this  genealogy, 
further,  while  Kohath  was  the  second  son  of  Levi  (Gershon  or 
Gershom  being  the  eldest  son),  yet  the  Kohathites  were  the  im- 
portant gens  of  the  Levites,  to  which  both  Moses  and  Aaron,  and 
consequently  the  priesthoods  of  both  the  temple  of  Dan  and  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  belonged.  It  is  to  be  noted,  further,  that 
in  the  genealogy  Korah  is  the  father  of  Abiasaph,  i.  e.,  the  great 
ancestor  of  Asaph.  If  this  Asaph  is  to  be  connected  with  the 
singing  guild  of  Asaph,  as  is,  I  think,  intended,  the  Korahites 
would  then  be  the  ancestors  or  prototypes  of  the  Asaphites. 

Turning  now  to  the  later  lists  of  Chronicles,  we  find  first  in  the 
brief  general  list  of  the  priestly  genealogy  (I  Ch.  5^'  ^•)  the 
Kohathites  recorded  as  the  gens  from  which  Moses  and  Aaron, 
and  through  the  latter  the  Zadokite  priesthood  of  the  Jerusalem 
temple  from  Solomon  on,  were  descended.  In  the  more  detailed 
list  (1  Ch.  6'^)  Samuel  the  prophet  appears  as  a  Kohathite.  In 
the  list  of  the  singers,  contained  in  the  same  chapter  (v.  ^^  ^•), 
where  the  object  is  to  show  that  all  the  original  Levitical  gentes 

*  Briggs,  The  Book  of  Psalms,  p.  Ixvi. 
t  Ex.  6"^  'f-.     Also  in  the  second  numbering,  Num.  2Q'-''": 
41 


42  THE   SONS  OF   KOKAH 

were  represented  in  the  service  of  the  Temple,  Heman,  a  descend- 
ant, through  Samuel,  Elkanah  and  Abiasaph,  of  Korah,  represents 
the  Kohathites;  Asaph  the  Gershonites;  and  Ethan*  the  gens 
of  Merari.  Similarly  in  I  Ch.  26^"^®,  supposed  to  represent  the 
organization  of  the  Temple  service  in  David's  time,  the  three 
gentes  are  represented  as  guardians  of  different  parts  of  the 
Temple,  the  Korahites  (Kohathites)  and  the  sons  of  Merari  being 
doorkeepers,  and  the  Gershonites  in  charge  of  the  treasury. 
(But  here  there  is  a  curious  confusion  in  that  Korah  is  the  son 
of  Asaph,  and  Gershom  the  son  of  Moses.)  With  this  list  agrees 
the  list  of  the  first  inhabitants,  in  I  Ch.  9,  in  so  far  that  the 
Korahites  (v.  ^^)  are  keepers  of  the  gates  of  the  tabernacle,  their 
fathers  having  been  keepers  of  the  entry  of  the  camp.  But  in  this 
list  the  Korahites  (v.  ^^)  are  also  included  among  the  singers. 
In  I  Ch.  16,  Asaph  is  prominent  among  the  musicians,  when 
David  brings  in  the  Ark,  and  the  leader  in  the  song  then  sung 
(v.  ^).  But  in  II  Ch.  20^^  when  the  good  Jehoshaphat  organizes 
his  army  on  a  Levitical  basis,  it  is  the  Korahites,  of  the  Kohath- 
ites, who  are  the  singers,  singing  the  self-same  thing  (v.  -^). 

Turning  to  what  may  be  regarded  as  more  nearly  contempo- 
raneous documents,  representing  the  organization  of  the  second 
temple,  the  identical  lists  in  Ezra  (2")  and  Nehemiah  (7*^)  of 
those  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel,  the  singers  (128  or  148  in 
number)  were  sons  of  Asaph,  and  there  are  no  Korahites  at  all. 

Through  the  more  or  less  conflicting  statements  of  these  lists 
it  is  apparent  that  in  the  later  period  the  name  of  Asaph  was 
particularly  connected  with  the  temple  music,  but  that  the  tra- 
dition persisted  of  an  earlier  Korahitic  guild  of  singers,  ante- 
dating Asaph,  and  from  whom  Asaph  was  in  fact  descended, 
belonging  to  the  great  Kohathite  gens  of  the  Levites. 

The  Korahites  are  further  mentioned  in  the  Priest  Code  in  two 
curious  stories,  now  combined  with  one  another,  and  with  the 
story  of  Dathan  and  Abiram  the  Reubenites,  contained  in  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  chapters  of  Numbers.     According  to 

*  An  interesting  comment  on  this  is  the  headings  of  Psalms  88  and  89,  in 
which  these  Psalms  are  ascribed  respectively  to  Heman  and  to  Ethan  the 
Ezrahites.  With  this  cf.  I  K.  5",  and  II  Ch.  2",  from  which  it  would  appear 
that  Heman  and  Ethan  are  the  names  of  traditional  wise  men,  afterwards 
incorporated  in  the  genealogies  of  Chronicles.  Elsewhere  Ezrahite  signifies 
aboriginal,  and  the  title  Ezrahite  is  therefore  a  designation  of  antiquity. 


THE   SONS  OF   KORAH  43 

one  of  these  stories,  which  is  regarded  as  belonging  to  the  original 
Priest  Code,  the  Korahites  rebel  against  the  whole  system  of 
Levitical  caste ;  *  according  to  the  other,  which  belongs  to  the 
later  additions  to  the  Priest  Code,t  they  rebel  against  the  special 
privileges  of  the  Zadokite  or  Aaronic  priesthood,  claiming  equal 
privileges  for  Levite  with  Aaronite.  For  this  they  are  consumed 
with  fire.  But  that  this  destruction  by  fire  is  theoretical,  not 
actual,  is  stated  later  in  the  same  book.J  The  obvious  connec- 
tion of  these  two  stories  is  (a)  with  the  statement  (1  K.  12^^)  that 
Jeroboam  "  made  priests  from  the  whole  of  the  people  which  were 
not  of  the  sons  of  Levi";  and  (b)  with  the  efforts  of  the  reformers 
of  Josiah's  time  to  associate  the  Levites  of  the  high  places  with 
the  priesthood  of  the  Jerusalem  temple  on  an  equal  footing. 
These  two  stories,  later  combined  in  one,  represent  two  moments 
in  the  struggle  of  the  priesthood  of  the  Jerusalem  temple  to  assert 
and  maintain  its  claim  to  exclusive  privilege.  They  are  the 
anathema  directed  primarily  against  the  priests  of  the  rival 
temples  of  Bethel  and  Dan,  and  secondly  against  the  Levites  of 
the  high  places,  and  cast  in  the  form  of  a  story  of  a  rebellion 
against  Moses  and  Aaron,  and  a  condign  and  terrible  punish- 
ment from  God  therefor. 

But  one  naturally  asks:  Why  should  the  Korahites  be  singled 
out  from  all  the  other  Levites  as  the  forefront  of  the  offence? 

We  have  in  the  Psalter  a  collection  of  Psalms  ascribed  to  the 
Sons  of  Korah,  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made,  con- 
sisting of  Psalms  42-49,  and  a  supplementary  collection,  of  some- 
what later  origin,  and  differing  from  the  former  in  several  im- 
portant particulars,  consisting  of  Psalms  84-89.  Indeed  all  of 
the  Psalms  of  this  supplementary  collection  are  not  ascribed  in 
their  headings  to  the  Sons  of  Korah.  Psalm  86  is  connected  by 
its  heading,  "Prayer  of  David,"  with  the  collection  51-72. 
Psalm  88  is  ascribed  both  to  the  Sons  of  Korah  and  to  Heman 
the  Ezrahite,  and  Psalm  89  to  Ethan  the  Ezrahite,  named  in  the 
lists  of  Chronicles  as  heads  of  the  singers  of  the  Kohath  (Korahite) 


*  Nu.  16'''  ^^■'"'-  '^-2*-  "*•  '^'''  ",  also  vv.  ♦'■'^o  (Heb.  IT"'*). 

t  Nu.  le^"-"-  '^'  '',  also  vv.  ^^-*°  (Heb.  17'  ■'). 

J  Nu.  26'':  "The  sons  of  Korah  died  not."  Later  in  the  same  chapter, 
in  the  second  numbering,  the  Koraljites  are  mentioned  as  one  of  the  great 
families  of  the  Levites,  Nu.  26" «• 


44  THE   SONS   OF   KORAH 

and  Merari  gentes  of  the  Levites.  Exactly  speaking  this  collec- 
tion is  a  supplement  to  the  three  preceding  collections  of  the 
2nd  and  3rd  books,  but  as  its  special  connection  is  with  the 
Korahite  collection,  we  may  regard  it  for  our  present  purpose  as 
supplementary  to  that  collection. 

Professor  Briggs  has  shown  in  his  commentary  that  Psalm  89 
is  composite.  To  one  of  the  hymns  out  of  which  it  was  com- 
posed belong,  according  to  him,  vv.  ^-  ^-  *'^^,  which  contain  the 
semi-mythological  references  to  the  "  sons  of  gods,"  and  the  vic- 
tory over  Rahab  the  monster  of  the  deep  or  underworld.  In  this 
section  of  the  Psalm  we  find  the  words  (v.  ^^): 

"North  and  South,  Thou  didst  create  them, 
Tabor  and  Hermon  in  Thy  name  ring  out  joy," 

where  Tabor  and  Hermon  are  manifestly  the  synonyms  of  south 
and  north.  This  is  one  of  those  incidental  topographical  allu- 
sions which  cannot  be  imitated  and  which  fix  definitely  the 
place  of  composition  of  the  Psalm.  It  was  evidently  composed 
at  some  place  from  which  Tabor  and  Hermon  were  respectively 
the  landmarks  of  south  and  north,  i.  e.,  in  eastern  Galilee.  To 
every  one  who  has  travelled  in  that  region  and  oriented  himself  by 
these  two  striking  landmarks,  it  bears  the  unmistakable  earmarks 
of  its  origin.  But  if  it  originated  in  this  region,  it  is  also  unques- 
tionably pre-exilic,  an  old  song,  justifying  the  heading  "  of  Heman, 
the  aboriginal";  for  that  title,  I  take  it,  belongs  properly  to  this 
part  of  the  composite  psalm. 

Turning  from  the  supplementary  collection  to  the  original  col- 
lection of  Psalms  of  the  Sons  of  Ivorah,  we  find  there  at  least  two 
Psalms  with  topographical  allusions  which  unmistakably  connect 
them  with  a  definite  locality.  All  commentators,  I  believe,  agree 
in  locating  the  42nd  Psalm  by  the  sources  of  the  Jordan,  at  the 
foot  of  Hermon.  So  Professor  Briggs:  "Description  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  exiles  looking  back  to  Jerusalem  from  the  region 
of  the  upper  Jordan."  Verse  '  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  lo- 
cality of  its  composition:  "from  the  land  of  Jordan,  and  Her- 
mons,  from  Mount  Mizar";  and  the  following  verse  (v.  ®)  is  a 
vivid  description  of  the  impression  made  on  the  mind  by  the 
rushing  torrents,  with  their  roaring  sound,  which  overflow  at 


THE   SONS   OF   KORAH  45 

times  the  whole  surrounding  region.*  At  both  Banias  and  Tel 
Kadi  you  hear  what  seems  at  first  to  be  the  roar  of  a  cataract, 
but  is  in  reality  the  sound  of  the  fountains  of  the  Jordan  springing 
out  of  the  deep  beneath.  But  most  impressive  of  all  is  the  great 
fountain  Leddan  at  Tel  Kadi,  the  ancient  Dan,  where,  with  a 
mighty  roaring  as  of  a  distant  cataract,  a  river  springs  full  born 
from  the  ground. 

But  if  the  place  of  origin  of  this  Psalm  is  unmistakable,  so  I 
think  is  its  ritual  purpose.  In  somewhat  strange  technical  or 
archaic  phraseology  the  5th  verse  tells  us  of  a  temple  procession- 
dance,  with  its  song  and  sacrifice,  and  the  throngs  of  pilgrims 
making  festival  (haj)  at  some  great  shrine.f  Why,  having  recog- 
nized that  the  place  of  composition  of  this  Psalm  was  Dan  or  its 
neighborhood,  commentators  should  have  then  proceeded  to 
connect  it  with  some  supposed  exile  from  the  Jerusalem  temple, 
making  a  supposititious  sojourn  in  that  region,  and  longing  for 
the  temple  services  at  Jerusalem,  instead  of  connecting  it  with 
the  singers  of  the  Temple  at  Dan,  I  do  not  comprehend.  It 
would  seem  to  me  that  as  it  is  clearly  connected  in  locality  with 
Dan,  so  also  it  is  connected  with  Dan  in  purpose,  having  been 
originally  a  festival  hymn  of  that  Temple,  served  by  a  Kohathite 
priesthood  as  we  learn  from  Judges  18^",  for  one  of  the  haj  festi- 
vals, presumably  the  great  haj  of  Tabernacles. 

Psalm  46  also  contains  in  its  first  stanza  a  vivid  description  of 

*  On  my  first  visit  to  this  region,  in  July,  we  floundered  for  an  hour  through 
a  flood  which  often  rose  to  the  horse's  belly.  The  words  of  this  Psalm  (v. "") 
were  a  most  exact  description  of  our  situation.  The  great  deep  beneath 
seemed  to  have  poured  itself  forth  upon  us. 

t  If  the  precise  translation  is  uncertain,  the  general  meaning  of  the  verse 
is  clear.  I  would  suggest  some  such  reading  as  this:  "This  let  me  celebrate 
(mjTN^  indicating  the  commemoration  or  celebration  of  a  festival  day  or 
time)  and  pour  out  my  soul;  for  I  pass  on  (over)  in  the  ID  (something  to  do 
with  the  feast  of  Tabernacles,  the  booths  or  boughs  then  used,  or  perhaps  the 
Tabernacle,  meaning  the  Temple  itself,  parallel  with  the  following  ^^^),  I 
lead  them  in  procession  (or  dance,  unless  we  read  with  LXX.  ai''N  instead 
of  D"\nN)  to  the  house  of  God,  with  the  voice  of  merry-making  and  thank- 
offering,  a  multitude  making  pilgrim-feast  (haj)."  The  seventh  and  eighth 
verses  I  would  read:  "My  soul  is  bowed  down,  therefore  I  make  memorial  to 
Thee,  from  the  land  of  Jordan  and  Hermon,  from  Mount  Mizar  (or  small). 
Deep  calleth  unto  deep  with  the  thunder  voice  of  Thy  water  floods;  all  thy 
waves  and  billows  have  passed  by  (or  over)  me."  Is  this  Mount  Miz'ar,  or 
little  mountain,  possibly  the  hill  now  known  as  Tel  Isadi,  on  which  the  foun- 
tain and  shrine  were  located? 


46  THE   SONS  OF   KORAH 

the  conditions  of  the  country  about  Dan,  where,  owing  to  the 
peculiar  configuration,  an  immense  mountain  area  draining  into 
a  relatively  small  basin,  you  appear  to  be  standing  in  that  basin 
immediately  over  a  great  deep.  The  earth  bogs  and  shakes  be- 
neath, fountains  well  and  springs  ooze  everyw^here,  the  waters 
roar  and  are  troubled,  and  the  very  mountains  round  about  seem 
to  rest  upon  a  great  unstable  sea  beneath,  and  to  shake  with  the 
swelling  thereof.  And  as  though  to  make  the  allusion  to  the 
sanctuary  of  Dan  more  certain,   the  second  stanza  proceeds: 

"(A  river)  Its  streams  make  glad  the  city  of  God, 
The  shrine  of  the  dwelling  of  the  Highest." 

Surely  this  does  not  describe  nor  apply  to  the  Temple  at  Jeru- 
salem, nor  to  any  other  sanctuary  in  Palestine  except  Dan,  which 
it  fits  exactly. 

While  no  other  of  the  Korah  Psalms,  either  in  the  main  collec- 
tion, or  the  supplement,  demand  Dan  or  its  neighborhood  or 
even  eastern  Galilee  as  their  necessary  setting  to  explain  their 
allusions,  there  are,  nevertheless,  allusions  in  several  of  the  other 
Psalms  of  these  collections  which  are  best  satisfied  by  such  a 
reference,  as  for  instance  "sides  of  the  north"  (48^),  and  perhaps 
also  such  phrases  as  "place  of  springs"  (84^);  "all  my  places  of 
springs  in  thee"  (87'').  It  is  worthy  of  note,  further,  that  it  is 
the  God  of  Jacob  who  is  the  especial  God  of  the  Korah  Psalter,* 
and  the  land  of  these  Psalms  is  the  "Heritage  of  Jacob."  The 
Korah  Psalter,  proper,  moreover,  is  Elohistic,  just  as  the  Penta- 
teuchal  narrative  of  Israel  (E)  is  Elohistic  in  contrast  with  the 
Yahawistic  narrative  (J)  of  Judah. 

It  is  not  meant,  of  course,  to  suggest  that  the  Korahitic  Psalms 
in  their  present  form  were  sung  at  the  Temple  of  Dan,  but  these 
glimpses  through  the  present  form  of  those  Psalms  into  what  lies 
behind,  justify,  I  think,  the  conclusion  that  the  Korahitic  psalms 
had  their  origin  in  northern  Israel,  and  more  specifically  at  the 
temple  of  Dan,  at  an  early  period,  before  the  captivity.  The 
Korahites,  a  great  Levitical  family  of  the  gens  Kohath,  serving 
at  Dan,  gave  their  name  to  these  Psalms.     When  they  were,  at  a 

*  Cf .  the  fact,  noted  by  Professor  Briggs,  that  the  Psalms  of  Asaph  make 
prominent  especially  the  land  of  Joseph. 


THE   SONS  OF   KORAH  47 

later  date,  adopted  and  adapted  for  use  in  the  Jerusalem  temple, 
the  tradition  of  their  origin  was  preserved  in  the  intitulation  'of 
the  Sons  of  Korah."  The  genealogical  lists  of  Chronicles  are 
dependent  for  their  information  regarding  the  Sons  of  Korah,  so 
far  as  that  information  was  not  derived  from  the  lists  of  the  Priest 
Code,  upon  the  preservation  of  the  name  of  Korah  in  connection 
with  these  Psalms,  traditionally  of  ancient  origin,  and  yet  not 
ascribed  to  David. 

It  is  the  prominence  of  the  Korahites  as  an  important,  pre- 
sumably in  that  time  the  dominant,  family  of  the  Kohathite  gens 
of  the  Levites,  as  represented  at  the  temple  of  Dan,  which  led  to 
the  direction  against  them  of  the  anathema  on  the  part  of  the 
Jerusalem  priesthood,  contained  in  the  original  Korah  story  of 
the  Priest  Code  (Numbers  16,  17),  because,  as  claimed,  they  ad- 
mitted to  priestly  service  in  their  temple  those  not  of  the  tribe  of 
Levi.*  By  natural  accretion,  when  the  real  Korahites  had  actu- 
ally passed  away,  the  same  name  was  used  in  the  addition  to  the 
.original  anathema  by  which,  with  increasing  claims  of  exclusive 
rights,  the  Jerusalem  priests  opposed  the  admission  into  their 
number  of  the  Levites  of  the  high  places. 

St.  Michael's  Church,  New  York, 
May  7,  1910. 

*  Cf.  on  Korah's  ancestry  also  I  Ch.  2",  and  Gray's  comments  thereon, 
Numbers,  pp.  193  f.  The  late  gloss  of  the  suspended  7iun  in  Judges  18^",  by 
which  Moses  is  turned  into  Manasseh,  the  founder  of  the  Samaritan  schism, 
as  first  high  priest  of  the  temple  on  Gerizzim,  seems  to  point  in  the  same 
direction. 


VI 

THE  ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS 
By  Kemper  Fullerton 

Is  the  Psalter  primarily  a  Temple  hymn-book  or  a  religious 
anthology  for  private  devotion  ?  Is  the  speaker  who  appears  in 
so  many  of  the  Psalms  an  individual,  or  the  community  personi- 
fied? 

These  two  nearly-related  questions  have  been  much  discussed 
in  recent  years.  In  thjs  discussion  the  Fifty-first  Psalm  has 
played  a  prominent  part.  The  title,  of  course,  has  been  re- 
sponsible for  the  popular  interpretation  of  the  "I"  of  this  psalm 
as  an  individual,  though  as  early  as  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  it 
was  interpreted  collectively.  Theodore  referred  it  to  the  people 
in  the  Babylonian  Exile.  But  when  once  the  authority  of  the 
titles  of  the  Psalms  was  broken  down,  a  new  impetus  was  given 
to  the  interpretation  of  the  "I"  as  a  collective.  The  defenders 
of  this  interpretation  pointed  triumphantly  to  vv.  ^'''  ^^  with  their 
pronounced  community  interest  in  proof  of  their  view.  In  these 
verses,  they  claimed,  the  personification  is  dropped  and  the  true 
^  nature  of  the  "I"  is  revealed.  On  the  other  hand  the  champions 
of  the  individualistic  interpretation  of  the  "I"  pointed  to  the 
apparent  discrepancy  between  vv.  ^"'  ^^  and  vv.  ^^'  ^^  as  evidence 
that  vv.  ^"^  ^^  are  a  later  accretion  to  the  psalm  and  hence  are  not 
to  be  utilized  to  determine  the  original  meaning  of  the  "I.'* 
Further,  they  ask,  how  could  vv.  ^^'  ^^  be  incorporated  in  a  psalm 
which  was  originally  designed  for  the  Temple  worship  ?  Would  a 
Temple  choir  use  a  song  that  deliberately  undermined  the  sacri- 
ficial ritual  for  the  conduct  of  which  the  Temple  was  built? 
Manifestly  not.  But  if  vv.  *^'  ^^  are  inconsistent  with  the  use  of 
the  psalm  in  the  public  worship  of  the  Temple,  it  would  naturally 

49 


50  THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL   PSALMS 

follow  that  we  are  not  dealing  in  this  case  with  a  community 
psalm,  but  with  a  psalm  of  personal  experience,  and  the  "I" 
would  accordingly  represent  an  individual. 

"But  do  y\.  ^^'  ^^  really  repudiate  the  sacrificial  system?"  ask 
the  advocates  of  the  collective  theory  in  reply.  Are  they  incon- 
sistent with  vv.  ^°'  ^S  and  must  the  latter  verses  be  rejected  as  a 
gloss?  Upon  the  answer  to  these  questions  no  consensus  of 
opinion  has  as  yet  been  attained,  and  hence  a  renewed  discussion 
of  them  does  not  seem  to  be  superfluous. 

At  first  sight  these  two  pairs  of  verses  seem  to  be  in  irreconcil- 
able antagonism.  Is  this  first  impression  due  to  superficial  ob- 
servation, or  is  it  the  natural  impression  which  the  words  would 
make  upon  an  unbiased  mind  ?  According  to  vv.  ^^'  ^^  God  takes 
no  pleasure  in  material  sacrifices;  what  He  desires  is  the  spiritual 
worship  of  the  heart.  According  to  vv.  -"-  ^^  God  will  take  pleas- 
ure in  material  sacrifices.  Are  not  these  two  statements  abso- 
lutely contradictory  ?  No,  it  is  claimed,  for  there  are  two  qualifi- 
cations which  must  be  taken  into  the  account,  namely,  the  phrase 
"sacrifices  of  righteousness,"  and  the  temporal  particle  "then." 

But  as  far  as  the  first  qualification  is  concerned,  it  distinctly 
suggests  difference  of  authorship.  According  to  \^.  ^^'  ^®  God 
will  not  accept  material  sacrifices;  what  he  desires  is  heart- 
religion.  These  words  do  not  really  mean  what  they  seem  to 
mean,  says  the  first  qualification.  They  must  be  taken  cum 
grano  salis.  God  does  not  unconditionally  reject  all  outward 
forms  of  worship.  He  only  insists  that  the  outward  form  should 
be  the  expression  of  the  inward  spirit.  Sacrifices  must  be 
"sacrifices  of  righteousness,"  that  is,  not  only  formally  correct, 
but  the  expression  of  the  religious  life  within.  The  phrase 
"Sacrifices  of  righteousness"  is  thus  clearly  seen  to  be  a  dog- 
matic qualification  of  the  absolutely  expressed  statement  in 
vv.  ^^'  ^^.  This  qualification  is,  no  doubt,  theologically  correct. 
It  is  even  probable  that  the  author  of  vv.  ^^'  ^^  would  have  sub- 
scribed to  it  himself.*     But  the  question  is  whether  the  author 

*  It  is  doubtful  whether  even  an  Isaiah  ever  imagined  a  national  religion 
apart  from  all  forms.  Such  an  idea  would  hardly  have  been  intelligible  to 
antiquity.  This  must  be  remembered  in  interpreting  those  statements  of 
the  prophets  which  seem  to  repudiate  all  sacrifice.  It  is  just  possible  that 
the  estimation  of  these  statements  by  German  criticism  has  been  somewhat 
influenced  by  the  peculiar  character  of  German  Protestantism. 


THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS  51 

of  these  verses  which  are  spoken  with  all  the  emotional  absolute- 
ness of  the  older  prophecy,  would  have  felt  called  upon  in  the 
present  connection  to  file  down  the  grandly  unconventional  char- 
acter of  his  thought  to  the  precise  and  scientific  accuracy  de- 
manded by  theology.  In  other  words,  the  phrase  "sacrifices  of 
righteousness"  has  every  indication  of  being  a  dogmatic  gloss, 
whose  timid  correctness  stands  in  strong  contrast  to  the  daring 
paradox  of  the  preceding  verses.  This  conclusion  is  confirmed 
by  the  demands  of  the  meter.  V.  ^^  is  metrically  too  long  by  just 
these  words. 

It  is  the  second  (historical)  qualification  suggested  by  the  tem- 
poral particle  "then"  which  is  mainly  relied  upon  to  defend  the 
unity  of  the  two  pairs  of  verses.  Let  us  give  the  argument  in  the 
words  of  two  of  its  ablest  exponents.  "At  present,"  says  the 
Psalmist,  according  to  Robertson  Smith,*  "  God  desires  no  ma- 
terial sacrifices.  But  does  the  Psalmist  mean  to  say  absolutely 
and  in  general  that  sacrifice  is  a  superseded  thing?  No;  for  he 
adds  that  when  Jerusalem  is  rebuilt,  the  sacrifices  of  Israel  will 
be  pleasing  to  God.  He  lives,  therefore,  in  a  time  when  the  fall 
of  Jerusalem  has  temporarily  suspended  the  sacrificial  ordinances 
.  .  .  but  has  not  closed  the  door  of  forgiveness  to  the  penitent 
heart."  The  exact  implications  of  this  statement  come  out  more 
clearly  in  Matthes'  formulation. f  Matthes  expressly  amplifies  the 
argument  of  Jacob.  |  "  It  is  certain,"  says  Matthes,  "  as  Jacob 
saw,  that  it  was  the  situation  in  which  sacrifice  was  impossible, 
in  no  case  a  disinclination  toward  sacrifice,  which  was  the  occa- 
sion of  the  singer  expressing  himself  as  he  does  in  this  passage. 
God  has,  no  doubt,  pleasure  in  sacrifices  when  they  are  possible, 
but  now  when  one  is  not  in  position  to  bring  them,  Jahwe  does 
not  demand  (fordcrt)  them.  Sorrow,  repentance,  fulfilment  of 
the  remaining  laws  now  suffice.  For  so  long  as  misfortune  lasts 
Jahwe  will  content  himself  with  what  is  attainable." 

This  explanation  of  the  difference  between  vv.  *^'  ^^  and 
vv.  ^'''  ^*  cannot  be  regarded  as  satisfactory.  1.  In  the  first  place 
the  meaning  of  the  passage  educed  by  these  expositors  is  barren 
and  unfruitful.  Expressed  very  baldly,  it  is  simply  this:  that 
God  will  make  a  virtue  of  necessity  and  content  himself  with  a 
purely  spiritual  worship  so  long  as  any  other  kind  is  impossible. 

*  OTJC=,  440.  t  ZAT,  1902,  p.  78.  J  ZAT,  1897,  p.  278. 


52  THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL   PSALMS 

(Cf.  especially  Matthes'  formulation  of  the  argument.)  2.  Again 
the  phraseology  of  xx.  ^*'  ^^  does  not  bear  the  interpretation 
which  Robertson  Smith  and  Matthes  put  upon  it.  According  to 
these  writers,  God  does  not  demand  sacrifices  at  the  present  time 
in  concession  to  the  situation.  But  what  is  really  said  is  that 
God  does  not  delight  in  (|*£ri)  or  accept  (n";>l)  sacrifices,  which 
is  a  very  different  proposition.  To  secure  the  meaning  pro- 
posed by  these  writers,  some  such  word  as  wTT  (cf.  Mi.  6*),  or 
n'i'    (cf.    Jer.    7"),  or   ^^s*w•   (cf.  Ps.  40")  would  be  necessary. 

3.  In  the  next  place  the  situation  of  the  singer  is  not  clearly  in- 
dicated until  we  reach  ^w.  -'*•  -\  Vv.  ^^'  ^^,  when  read  in  the 
light  of  the  preceding  context,  do  not  suggest  at  all  that  the 
reason  why  God  did  not  demand  (accept)  sacrifices  was  because 
of  the  inability  on  the  part  of  the  people  to  offer  them.  We  can 
only  infer  this  from  the  verses  that  follow.  But  if  obscurity  is 
to  be  avoided,  w.  ^^'  ^^  in  themselves  or  by  reason  of  the  pre- 
ceding context  ought  to  suggest  a  situation  in  which  sacrifices 
were  impossible.  4.  On  the  contrary,  and  finally,  the  phrase- 
ology of  V.  ^^  in  its  most  natural  interpretation  implies  that  sacri- 
fice is  possible.  This  view  is  suggested  by  the  verbs  "  delight  in," 
"accept,"  which  would  have  little  sense  if  sacrifices  were  impos- 
sible. It  is  necessitated  by  the  verb  "j^^fV  This  verb  is 
usually  construed  as  the  apodosis  to  v.  ^*^.*  This  is  metrically 
bad.  It  is  really  the  protasis  to  what  follows:  "and  if  I  give  it, 
thou  wouldst  not  accept  it."  (Cf.  Duhm  ad  loc.)  The  pre- 
ceding context  (v.  "^)  also  suggests  that  the  speaker  is  in  the 
Holy  Land,t  and  therefore  presumably  able  to  oft'er  sacrifices. 

Smend  long  ago  saw  clearly  J  that  vv.  ^^'  ^^  could  not  refer  to  a 
situation  (e.  g.,  the  Exile)  in  which  it  was  impossible  to  offer 
sacrifices.  Yet  he  still  maintains  that  there  is  a  contrast  between 
the  present  and  the  future.  But  it  is  a  contrast  not  between  the 
present  exile  and  the  future  Restoration  to  the  Holy  Land,  but 
between  the  sinful  community  of  the  present  in  the  Holy  Land, 
and  the  justified  community  of  the  Messianic  Future.    God  will 

*  So  LXX,  cf.  A.V.  and  R.V.  text.  R.V."^  follows  Jerome's  translation,  but 
this  implies  an  unnecessarily  harsh  construction. 

t  This  phrase  is  regularly  employed  of  banishment  from  the  Holy  Land, 
cf.  2  K.  1323,  1720^  24=0,  etc. 

X  ZAT.  1888,  p.  112. 


THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL   PSALMS  53 

not  accept  the  jirajntiaiory  sacrifices  of  the  present  because  of  the 
sinful  condition  of  the  people.  \Miat  he  desires  is  true  repent- 
ance. This  is  not  inconsistent  with  his  acceptance  of  thank- 
offerings  from  the  purified  community  of  the  Messianic  future. 
Thus  the  contrast  is  not  only  between  the  present  and  the  future, 
but  between  the  different  spiritual  condition  of  the  people  in  the 
present  and  the  future,  and  between  the  propitiatory  sacrifices  of 
the  present  and  the  thank-offerings  of  the  future.  But  where 
such  entirely  different  things  are  referred  to  in  vv.  ^*'  ^^  and 
vv.  ^^'  ^^,  it  is  improper  to  speak  of  a  contradiction. 

This  view  of  Smend  avoids  the  main  objections  to  Smith's  and 
Matthes'  explanation,  but  it  creates  new  difiiculties.  1.  It  is 
assumed  that  the  reason  why  God  does  not  accept  sacrifices  at 
present  is  because  the  people  is  sinful.  If  the  "I"  of  this 
Psalm  is  a  collective,  as  Smend  maintains,  the  people  is  indeed 
sinful,  but  it  is  as  certainly  penitent,  and  it  is  hard  to  see  why 
God  would  refuse  propitiatory  sacrifices  of  a  truly  penitent 
people  if  he  was  willing  to  receive  thank-offerings  from  a  com- 
pletely purified  people.  2.  Again,  Smend's  view  requires  that  a 
figurative  sense  be  given  to  \^'.  ^"'  ^^  (they  must  refer  to  an  ideal 
restoration)  for  which  there  is  absolutely  no  warrant  except  the 
exigencies  of  Smend's  defense  of  the  unity  of  the  passage.  3. 
Further,  while  this  view  would  resolve  the  contradiction  into  a 
harmless  antithesis,  it  would  still  fail  to  save  the  original  unity 
of  these  verses.  Smend  must  admit  that  the  absoluteness  of  the 
old  prophetic  proclamation  as  expressed  in  \-v.  ^*'  ^^  would  be 
toned  down  (abgeschwdcht)  in  w.  ^^'  ^\  But  we  have  already  seen 
in  the  case  of  the  phrase  "sacrifices  of  righteousness"  that  such 
a  qualification  would  almost  certainly  imply  in  this  connection 
a  different  MTiter.  The  conclusion  seems  to  be  inevitable. 
Vv.  ^®'  ^®  and  v\.  "*''  "^  cannot  have  originated  from  the  same  pen. 
The  first  impression  made  by  these  verses  has  been  shown  to  be 
correct. 

But  which  of  the  two  pairs  of  verses  is  original  ?  It  has  been 
assumed  as  a  matter  of  course  by  those  who  deny  the  common 
authorship  of  these  verses,  that  w.  ^"'  -^  are  secondary.  At  first 
sight  this  seems  to  be  the  natural  conclusion.  The  motives 
which  would  lead  to  such  an  addition  are  at  once  intelligible. 
The  gloss  would  be  due  partly  to  the  desire  to  qualify  the  very 


54  THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS 

strong  statement  in  vv.  "•  ^*,  which  might  give  offense  to  a  scru- 
pulous conscience,  partly  to  a  wish  to  adapt  an  original,  individu- 
alistic psalm  to  use  in  the  Temple  worship.  Is  our  first  impression 
again  to  be  trusted  ?  In  the  present  case,  simple  and  attractive 
as  the  explanation  of  vv.  ^^'  ^^  is,  there  are  weighty  objections  to 
it.  1.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that  in  the  three  other  cases  in  the 
Psalter  where  we  meet  with  statements  parallel  to  51**'  ^®,  viz. 
40^  '^  69^^  and  Ps.  50,  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  such  redactional 
qualification  as  is  assumed  in  the  present  case.  But  if  it  was 
thought  to  be  necessary  in  Ps.  51,  why  not  in  these  other  psalms? 
2.  The  abruptness  of  the  ending  of  the  psalm,  if  vv.  ^°'  ^^  are 
omitted,  has  often  been  felt  and  even  urged  with  considerable 
force  in  defense  of  the  originality  of  the  disputed  verses.  3.  Of 
still  greater  moment  is  the  observation  that  vv.  ^^'  ^^  are  really 
inappropriate  in  their  present  connection.  What  is  the  force  of 
the  "for"  at  v.  ^^^?  How  are  vv.  ^^' ^^  an  explanation  of  or 
reason  for  the  statement  in  v.  "?  It  is  difficult  to  say.  After 
V.  *^  we  expect  an  expression  of  gratitude,  not  of  the  inadequacy 
of  sacrifice  as  contrasted  with  true  sorrow  for  sin.  This  inappro- 
priateness  of  vv.  *^'  "  in  their  present  context  has  been  felt  at 
times  by  others,  though  no  sufficient  attention  has  heretofore 
been  paid  to  it.  Baethgen,  for  example,  construes  v.  ^^  as  a  refer- 
ence to  thank-offerings,  admittedly  because  of  the  demands  of 
the  preceding  context.  But  v.  ^®  must  take  its  coloring  from  v.  ^®, 
and  that  clearly  demands  a  reference  to  propitiatory  offerings 
(cf.  Smend  supra).  Baethgen  himself  does  not  seem  to  feel  quite 
easy  in  his  interpretation,  for  he  cites  Hupfeld  to  the  effect  that, 
after  all,  it  is  possible  "  that  no  strictly  logical  sequence  of  thought 
is  to  be  found  here,  and  the  poet,  in  silently  taking  DTIDT  in 
its  general  sense  (i.  e.  of  sacrifices  rather  than  of  peace-offerings 
specifically)  returned  to  the  means  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins.'* 
The  sharp  eye  of  Duhm  has  also  observed  the  non-sequitur. 
"  One  could  think,"  he  says,  "  that  the  poet  had  got  off  the  track 
a  bit  and  had  considered  the  sacrifices,  not  as  an  antithesis  to 
the  praise  of  God  in  which  he  could  express  his  gratitude,  but  as 
a  means  of  salvation  which  would  stand  in  antithesis  to  peni- 
tence and  sorrow,  since  a  broken  heart  does  not  seem  to  harmonize 
with  expressions  of  joy,  but  rather  describes  the  present  mood 
before  the  deliverance."     In  order  to  meet  this  difficulty,  Duhm 


THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL   PSALMS  55 

makes  the  suggestion  that  the  poet,  mindful  of  Is.  57*^,  regarded 
the  broken  spirit  "  as  the  mark  of  the  truly  pious  man  which  still 
remains  even  when  he  has  personally  experienced  salvation  and 
is  singing  songs  of  praise."  This  explanation  is  not  convincing. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  penitence  is  not  banished  even  when 
gratitude  and  praise  are  aglow,  but  the  logical  sequence  between 
vv.  ^^'  ^^  and  vv.  ^^'  ^^  indicated  by  the  "for"  does  not  at  all  favor 
so  subtle  a  thought.  What  we  expect  is:  My  mouth  will  de- 
clare thy  praise  for  Thou  dost  not  delight  in  sacrifices  but  in  a 
grateful  heart  {cL  Q9^').  What  we  get  is:  My  mouth  will  declare 
thy  praise  for  Thou  dost  not  delight  in  sacrifices  but  in  a  penitent 
heart !  4.  If,  now,  we  ask  ourselves  which  of  the  two  pairs  of 
verses  fits  into  the  thought  of  the  Psalm  as  a  whole  more  exactly, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  doubts  of  the  originality  of  w.  ^^*  ^®  are 
greatly  increased,  and  the  claims  of  vv.  ^"'  ^^  to  be  regarded  a^ 
original  proportionately  strengthened.  At  first  sight  again, 
vv.  ^^'  ^^  seem  to  have  the  stronger  claim.  Do  not  they  supply, 
it  may  be  asked,  the  last  perfecting  touch  which  would  turn  this 
Psalm  into  one  of  the  most  classical  expressions  of  spiritual  re- 
ligious experience  ?  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  appeal  which 
these  verses  make  to  our  religious  sympathy  is  very  forcible. 
But  in  deciding  such  a  question  the  emotional  appeal  which  a 
passage  may  make  to  us  is  not  necessarily  the  controlling  factor. 
At  this  point  the  course  of  thought  and  the  nature  of  the  "I"  in 
vv.  ^'"  must  be  examined: 

The  Psalm  may  be  divided  into  the  following  clearly  marked 
paragraphs:  (a)  In  vv.  ^"^  after  an  opening  appeal  to  God's 
mercy,  there  is  an  all-inclusive  confession  of  sin;  (6)  In  w.  ^"^^ 
there  is  a  prayer  for  pardon  and  for  spiritual  renewal,  (c)  In 
vv.  "■"  there  is  a  prayer  for  deliverance  from  the  present  mis- 
fortunes, which  must  be  regarded  in  this  connection  as  the  con- 
sequences of  sin,  together  with  vows  of  service  and  gratitude. 
Observe  that  while  the  thought  of  deliverance  (]!U'*)  so  character- 
istic of  vv.  ^*-"  is  probably  anticipated  at  v.  ^^  the  thought 
of  sin  and  pardon  which  dominates  vv.  ^'^  does  not  recur  in 
vv.  **-".* 

*  It  is  not  permissible,  as  Dr.  Briggs  points  out,  to  translate  o'O"'  v.  "  by 
"blood-guiltiness."  Ezek.  18'^  and  I  Sam.,  25=''-  '^  are  not  sufficient  to  justify 
this  translation.     It  is  interesting  to  notice  that,  though  the  word  frequently 


56  THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS 

Let  US  next  inquire  as  to  the  nature  of  the  "I"  in  vv.  ^■". 
The  following  arguments,  when  taken  together,  seem  conclusive 
for  the  collective  "  I."  (a)  V.  "  is  much  more  easily  interpreted 
of  the  nation  than  of  the  individual.  When  the  speaker  ex- 
claims: "Against  Thee,  Thee  only  have  I  sinned,"  he  seems  to 
be  unconscious  of  any  wrong  done  to  man.  This  is  more  easily 
understood  of  the  nation  than  of  the  individual.  The  nation 
recognized  the  justice  of  its  sufferings  as  due  to  its  religious 
apostasy,  its  sin  against  God,  but  maintained  its  innocence  as 
against  its  enemies  who  were  immediately  responsible  for  its 
sufferings.  This  simultaneous  consciousness  of  guilt  and  inno- 
cence, guilt  toward  God  and  innocence  toward  man,  of  which 
Ps.  38  is  a  classical  illustration,  can  be  best  explained  on  the 
nationalistic  interpretation  of  the  "I."  51^  read  in  the  light  of 
Ps.  38  becomes  clear  at  once.*  (b)  Similarly,  v.  '  lends  itself 
far  more  readily  to  the  collective  than  to  the  individualistic  inter- 
pretation of  the  "  I."  On  the  individualistic  interpretation  v.  ^ 
naturally  suggests  either  the  sinfulness  of  the  marriage  relation- 
ship in  itself,  or  the  illegitimacy  of  the  speaker's  birth.  The 
phrasing  is  too  strong  to  express  only  the  general  sinful  origin 
of  man.  The  verb  '»iri!2n"'  is  found  again  only  at  Gn.  30^^ 
and  31^",  and  it  suggests  the  animal  origin  of  man.  If  the 
speaker  w^ere  an  individual  the  coarse  expression  could  hardly 
fail  to  deflect  the  attention  from  the  sin  of  the  speaker,  which  is 
the  thought  to  be  emphasized,  to  his  mother.    On  the  collective 

occurs,  it  is  never  translated  in  A.V.  by  blood-guiltiness  except  in  this  one 
place.  The  translators  seem  to  have  been  led  to  so  translate  it  in  Ps.  51  by 
the  title.  Incidentally  the  above  analysis  of  the  psalm  furnishes  new  evi- 
dence that  vv.  '^'  ^^  and  vv.  ^"^  -'  cannot  both  be  original.  The  logical  analysis 
is  in  all  probability  the  strophical  analysis  as  well.  Vv.  ^'^  and  vv.  ^""  each 
give  a  twelve-line  stanza.  In  vv.  ""  we  have  eight  lines.  This  suggests  that 
there  were  but  four  lines  in  the  remainder  of  the  psalm.  Hence  one  of  these 
final  pairs  of  verses  is  to  be  rejected.  This  strophical  analysis  is  based  on 
the  view  that  the  two  ]U  at  vv.  ''■  *  do  not  justify  the  combination  of  these 
two  verses  into  the  same  stanza.  V.  ^  certainly  goes  with  the  preceding  con- 
fession of  sin.  V.  *,  whatever  else  it  may  mean,  is  as  certainly  not  a  part  of 
this  confession.  As  a  matter  of  fact  v.  ^  has  been  corrupted  probably  beyond 
the  possibility  of  recovery. 

*  Cf .  Smend's  article  cited  above  for  this  argument.  It  is  not  maintained 
that  this  argument  alone  is  conclusive  for  a  collective  "I."  In  the  case  of  a 
profoundly  religious  nature  the  ethical  conception  of  sin  is  sometimes  absorbed 
by  the  religious  conception  of  sin.  Hence,  if  5P  stood  by  itself,  theoretically, 
it  might  be  interpreted  of  an  individual. 


THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL   PSALMS  57 

theory  the  mother  is  the  nation  and  in  pointing  to  the  sin  of  the 
nation  ("mother  Israel,"  cf.  Dr.  Briggs)  the  collective  "I"  em- 
phasizes in  a  striking  way  its  own  sin  and  the  very  strong  ex- 
pression used  is  entirely  appropriate. 

(c)  Lastly  v.^^''  makes  very  strongly  in  favor  of  the  nationalistic 
interpretation  of  the  "I."  The  reference  to  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
found  again  in  the  Old  Testament  only  at  Is.  63''''  ",  where  it  is 
used  of  the  providential  guidance  of  the  nation.  As  enduement 
by  the  Spirit  is  not  ascribed  to  individuals  in  the  Old  Testament 
except  for  the  exercise  of  some  theocratic  function,  and  there  is 
no  hint  of  the  speaker  of  this  psalm  exercising  such  a  function, 
the  individualistic  interpretation  at  this  point  is  in  great  straits. 
Witness  Duhm's  conjecture  here.  * 

If  we  have  been  correct  in  our  view  of  the  course  of  thought  in 
vv.  ^^"^^  and  of  the  collective  nature  of  the  "  I,"  it  will  be  seen  at 
once  that  vv.  ^*''  ^^  make  a  very  strong  claim  to  be  the  original 
conclusion  of  the  psalm.  Vv.  ^°'  ^^  which  contain  a  prayer  for 
the  community,  give  the  appropriate  logical  conclusion  to  the 
psalm  if  the  "I"  is  a  collective.  It  is  not  necessary,  yet  very 
natural,  that  at  the  end  the  personification  should  be  dropped. 

(b)  These  verses  explain  the  exact  nature  of  the  misfortunes 
alluded  to  in  the  preceding  part  of  the  psalm.  If  the  "I"  is  col- 
lective, the  misfortunes  must  be  national,  but  without  vv.  ^*''  ^^  it 
would  be  impossible  to  say  specifically  what  they  are.  On  the 
individualistic  theory  there  is  no  indication  whatever  of  the  real 
nature  of  the   misfortune.     V.  ""^  by  itself   furnishes    no  clue. 

(c)  Further,  vv.  ^"'  ^^  supply  just  the  conclusion  which  we  are 
led  to  anticipate  from  the  general  movement  of  the  poem.  The 
thoughts  of  sin,  penitence  and  pardon  have  been  dropped  since 
V.  ^^  Vv.  "  "^^  lead  us  to  expect  a  reference  to  gratitude.  And 
this  is  what  we  get  in  vv.  ^^-  ^^  but  not  in  vv.  ^^'  ^^  (d)  Finally, 
vv.  ^"'  ^^  correspond  to  and  admirably  elucidate  vv.  "•  ^^.  V.  '■" 
is  the  interpretation  of  the  "violence"  from  which  the  speaker 
prays  to  be  delivered  in  v.  ^^  and  v.  ^S  which  must  refer  to  thank- 
offerings,  is  the  fulfilment  in  deed  of  the  promise  of  praise  in  v.^^ 

Thus  far  I  have  tried  to  show  two  things:  first,  that  the  first 
impression  of  the  incompatibility  of  vv.  **•  *^  and  vv.  ^°'  ^*  is,  on 

*  In  the  above  I  have  given  only  those  arguments  which  seem  to  me  to  be 
really  decisive. 


58  THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS 

closer  examination,  found  to  be  justified;  secondly,  that  the 
first  impression,  that,  as  between  these  two  pairs  of  verses,  vv/^-  ^^ 
have  the  greater  claim  to  originality,  is  not  justified.  It  is 
vv,  ^"'  ^^  which  stand  in  organic  relationship  with  the  rest  of  the 
psalm.     Vv.  ^^'  ^^  do  not  do  so. 

But  has  not  the  course  of  our  argument  led  us  into  a  cul  de  sac  f 
While  an  intelligible  reason  can  be  found  {yid.  supra)  for  the 
later  addition  of  vv.  ^*''  ^^  on  the  supposition  of  their  secondary 
character,  can  an  equally  convincing  reason  be  given  for  the 
addition  of  vv.  ^^'  ^^,  if  they  are  regarded  as  secondary  ?  Here 
lies  the  real  crux  of  the  situation.  If  a  probable  explanation  of 
vv.  ^^'  ^^  considered  as  a  gloss,  cannot  be  given,  the  argument 
which  we  have  followed  must  be  considered  to  be  a  blind  trail. 

Here  I  would  hazard  the  conjecture  that  as  there  are  un- 
doubtedly some  originally  individualistic  psalms  which  have 
been  revised  for  the  public  service  of  the  temple,  so  there  may 
be  some  originally  temple  psalms  which  have  been  revised  for  a 
collection  for  private  devotion.  If  Ps.  51  stood  alone  this  con- 
jecture would  have  nothing  to  support  it  except  the  inherent 
difficulties  of  the  psalm  itself  in  its  present  form.  But  happily 
Ps.  51  does  not  stand  alone.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  immediately 
follows  a  psalm  (Ps.  50)  which  expresses  practically  the  same 
attitude  toward  the  ritual  as  is  found  in  Ps.  5V^'  ^^.  In  the  case 
of  Ps.  50,  it  is  true,  we  cannot  speak  of  a  temple  psalm  revised 
for  private  use.  It  was  rather  designed  from  the  start  for  private 
devotion.  Even  if  the  favorite  theory  of  the  present  time  be 
adopted  which  understands  nl^^\  in  vv.  "  and  v.  ^^  of  the  thank- 
offering,  and  if,  accordingly,  no  absolute  rejection  of  sacrifices 
can  be  inferred  from  this  Psalm  (cf.  also  v.  ^  and  v.  ^),  it  still  re- 
mains inconceivable  that  the  language  employed  in  vv.  '"^^  could 
ever  have  been  employed  in  a  psalm  originally  designed  for  the 
Temple  worship.  *    The  writer  of  Ps.  50  may  tolerate  the  sacri- 

*  Cf.  Kittel,  PRE,  Bd.  16,  192.  The  fact  that  Ps.  50  is  an  Asaph  psalm 
and  therefore  belonged  at  one  time  in  its  history  to  the  temple  choir  cannot 
alter  the  deduction  drawn  from  its  forcible  language  but  only  serves  to  sug- 
gest the  long  and  obscure  history  of  the  individual  psalms  that  lies  back  of 
our  present  collection.  As  Kittel  observes,  the  theories  of  Matthes  and  Jacob 
cannot  demonstrate  the  original  temple  character  of  these  psalms  but  at  most 
they  illustrate  the  process  by  which  these  psalms  may  have  been  interpreted 
as  temple  psalms  when  they  were  adopted  into  the  present  collection. 


THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS  59 

ficial  system  as  a  long-established  custom,  but  he  has  lost  all 
vital  religious  interest  in  it.  It  might  be  thought  that  51^^-  ^' 
were  due  to  a  glossator  who  was  much  impressed  by  Ps.  50  and 
who  accctt-dingly  retouched  the  next  following  psalm  in  accord- 
ance with  the  teachings  of  Ps.  50.  But  another  theory,  less 
simple,  but  critically  sounder,  is  to  be  preferred.  The  position 
of  Ps.  50  is  anomalous.  It  is  an  Asaph  psalm,  but  separated 
from  all  the  other  Asaph  psalms.  How  did  this  happen  ?  Ewald 
conjectured  that  the  Davidic  psalms  of  the  Second  Book  (Pss. 
51-72)  originally  stood  at  the  beginning  of  the  Book,  With  these 
removed  Ps.  50  would  come  immediately  before  the  other  Asaph 
psalms  (Pss.  73-83).  This  conjecture  does  not  help  matters 
much.  Apart  from  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  the  supposed 
transfer  of  Ps.  51-72  to  the  general  position  which  they  now 
occupy  between  the  Korah  and  Asaph  psalms,  no  reason  is  forth- 
coming to  explain  why  the  Davidic  psalms  were  awkwardly 
thrust  into  the  Asaph  group.  The  Davidic  psalms  could  have 
been  interpolated  between  the  Korah  and  Asaph  psalms  without 
the  necessity  of  disturbing  the  latter  collection.  It  is  the  anom- 
alous position  of  Ps.  50,  not  of  the  group  of  Davidic  psalms 
(Pss.  51-72)  which  demands  explanation.  It  would  seem  prob- 
able that  the  peculiar  position  of  Ps.  50  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it 
had  a  different  history  from  its  companion  Asaph  psalms.  If 
we  suppose  that  Ps.  50  and  Ps.  51  both  belonged  at  one  time  to 
a  collection  of  psalms  for  private  use,  we  may  be  able  to  account 
for  the  present  position  of  Ps.  50,  and  at  the  same  time  derive 
confirmation  for  our  conjecture  that  51^^-  *^  is  a  gloss.  The 
reason  why  Ps.  50  is  in  its  present  position  is  because  it  was 
attached  to  Ps.  51  in  a  previous  collection.  This  collection  was 
presumably  a  collection  for  private  devotion,  for  Ps.  50  is  not 
adapted  to  the  worship  of  the  Temple.  But  Ps.  51  was  a  Temple 
psalm.  When  it  was  adopted  into  the  supposed  private  collec- 
tion, w.  ^^'  ^^  were  added.  On  the  theory  of  a  private  psalter  in 
which  Ps.  50  and  Ps.  51  once  stood  together,  the  present  anom- 
alous position  of  Ps.  50  and  the  gloss  at  5P^'  "  can  both  be 
accounted  for.* 

*  It  may  be  asked  why  vv.^'  ^'  were  not  dropped  when  vv.  '^^  '®  were  added? 
Probably  because  the  reviser  did  not  wish  to  omit  the  devout  and  patriotic 
prayer  in  v.  ^.     A  later  glossator,  however,  was  more  sensitive  to  the  conflict 


60  THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS 

But  our  evidence  is  not  yet  exhausted  for  this  thesis.  If  we 
turn  to  Ps.  40,  we  find  in  vv.  ^'  ^  a  quatrain  remarkably  similar  to 
5J18,  19  jg  ^.jjjg  quatrain  original  in  Ps.  40?  It  is  notorious 
that  this  psalm  has  come  down  to  us  with  various  accretions. 
Vv.  "'^^j  in  which  the  singer  prays  for  deliverance,  are  the 
duplicate  of  Ps.  70.  They  cannot  be  original  in  Ps.  40  as  they 
are  incompatible  with  vv.  ^-^  in  which  the  singer  is  already  de- 
livered. V.  ^^  must  be  a  "seam"  (cf,  Cheyne,  Duhm,  Briggs), 
as  it  can  hardly  belong  to  what  follows  (cf.  its  omission  at  Ps,  70) 
and  it  has  no  force  as  a  conclusion  to  what  precedes.  Vv,  ""^^ 
are  full  of  needless  repetitions  and  vv.  "•  "  are  metrically  out  of 
order,  all  of  which  suggests  the  presence  of  further  accretions. 
In  view  of  these  generally  admitted  facts  it  would  not  be  aston- 
ishing to  discover  that  vv.  '•  ®  may  also  be  due  to  revision.  If 
the  connection  between  vv.  *"®  and  w.  "'<  ^  be  examined,  it  will 
be  found  to  be  very  suspicious.  Vv.  ^"^  are  an  expression  of 
thanks-giving  for  deliverance  out  of  misfortune.  The  singer, 
however,  is  overcome  at  the  thought  of  the  wonderful  works  of 
God  which  are  too  numerous  for  his  grateful  tongue  to  proclaim. 
Then,  suddenly,  we  have  the  great  prophetic  utterance  vv,  ^'  *, 
It  is  usually  assumed  that  the  gap  between  vv,  ^"*  and  vv.  ^'  ^  is 
bridged  by  an  implied  question:  "How  can  I  properly  express 
my  gratitude?"  to  which  vv. '•  ®  give  the  answer:  "Not  by 
sacrifice  but  by  service."  But  v.  '  cannot  be  the  answer  to  such 
an  implied  question,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  reference  to 
the  sin-offering  (nt^tsn)  forbids  us  to  take  these  sacrifices  as 
representative  of  thank-offerings.  To  imply  a  question  with 
which  the  phraseology  of  the  sentence  supposed  to  furnish  the 
answer  is  inconsistent  is  a  more  than  doubtful  proceeding,  * 

between  the  two  pairs  of  verses,  and  it  was  he  who  inserted  the  most  recent 
element  in  the  text,  the  dogmatic  clause,  "sacrifices  of  righteousness, "  in 
order  to  blunt  the  edge  of  the  contrast, 

*  Duhm  feels  this  difficulty  and  attempts  to  delete  the  last  clause  of  v.  '', 
with  resulting  reconstructions  of  the  most  violent  and  unconvincing  descrip- 
tion, Jacob  (ZAT,  1897,  p.  279)  and  Dr.  Briggs  urge  that  -iNtsn  cannot 
mean  sin-offering.  They  point  to  the  fact  that  in  the  seven  places  in  which 
the  word  is  found  again,  it  means  sin,  not  sin-offering,  and  that  the  regular 
word  for  sin-offering  (nNon)  jg  not  found  in  the  Psalter  at  all.  Hence,  they 
claim,  the  ordinary  meaning  of  "s^t^n  must  be  adhered  to  and  v.  ''^  be  trans- 
lated "Burnt-offering  with  sin  thou  didst  not  desire."  In  support  of  this 
construction  Is.  1"  and  61*  are  adduced.     Strong  as  these  arguments  are,  I 


THE  ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS  61 

There  is  thus  strong  evidence  that  40'*  °  are  also  secondary. 
As  these  verses  embody  the  same  sentiment  as  51*^'  ^®,  the 
thought  is  at  once  suggested  that  these  glosses  came  from  the 
same  hand  in  connection  with  the  adoption  of  these  psalms  into 
a  psalter  for  private  devotion.*  This  theory  would  imply  that 
Ps.  40  was  originally  a  temple  Psalm,  as  was  Ps.  51.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  the  proof  for  a  collective  "I"  in  Ps.  40  is  not  so 
clear  as  in  the  case  of  Ps.  51,  and  w.  "'  "  might  be  thought  to 
require  a  differentiation  of  the  speaker  from  the  community  (the 
great  congregation).  This  last  consideration  is  of  little  impor- 
tance. If  once  the  existence  of  a  personified  "I"  is  granted  in 
the  Psalter,  w.  ^*''  "  would  refer  to  the  community  in  its  formal 
public  worship.  That  we  are  dealing  with  an  originally  temple 
psalm  in  the  present  instance  is  probable  from  the  following 

cannot  consider  them  convincing.  As  far  as  the  Isaiah  passages  are  concerned, 
the  latter  is  certainly  corrupt  (LXX,  Syr.  and  Targ  give  a  different  reading, 
which  even  the  R.  V.  follows),  and  the  former  is  probably  corrupt  (cf .  LXX  and 
Duhm  ad  loc).  But  even  granting  the  possibility  of  this  translation,  it  is 
improbable  in  this  connection,  as  it  violates  the  parallelism,  and  gives  a  sense 
inappropriate  to  the  context.  Isaiah  might  appropriately  preach  against  the 
hypocrisy  of  his  hearers  who  combined  "folly  with  festivals"  (Is.  1",  if  M.T. 
is  retained)  but  a  man  full  of  devout  gratitude  to  God  and  desirous  of  praising 
him  in  an  acceptable  manner  would  hardly  feel  called  upon  to  say  that  God 
takes  no  pleasure  in  sacrifices  accompanied  with  sin.  ^Ntsn  cannot  be  elimi- 
nated from  the  present  context,  and  in  this  context  can  only  have  the 
meaning  of  sin-offering  (cf.  LXX).  That  this  meaning  is  linguistically  possible 
is  clear  from  the  use  of  rutisn  for  sin  and  sin-offering  (cf.  also  the  analogous 
double  use  of  f^'in). 

*  I  have  purposely  refrained  from  taking  v.  *  into  accoimt.  The  interpreta- 
tion of  this  verse  is  only  guess-work  at  best.  Yet  may  I  add  one  more  guess 
to  the  long  list  of  conjectures?  If  vv.  "•  ®  are  cut  out,  v.  '"  does  not  attach 
very  well  to  v.  ^.  In  v.  ^  God's  works  are  too  many  for  the  poet  to  describe. 
But  in  V.  '"  he  proposes  to  proclaim  them  anyway.  An  indication  of  an- 
tithesis is  needed.  Read  l^  for  the  unintelligible  '*<,  and  understand  ■'•"f^^ 
of  entering  the  Temple  courts  (cf.  100*).  Possibly  ^''ixn  or  T'^V^'  has  been 
omitted.  V.  "^  will  then  be  a  late  gloss,  alluding,  not  to  the  Pentateuch,  or 
Deuteronomy,  or  to  the  Prophets  generally,  as  has  been  variously  supposed, 
but  to  an  earlier  collection  of  psalms  in  which  possibly  Ps.  100  stood  (cf. 
especially  100*).  Thus  understood  v.  *  furnishes  a  connecting  link  between 
V.  *  and  V.  *",  and  also  a  basis  to  which  the  gloss  in  vv.  ''•  ^  could  become  at- 
tached. For  when  the  original  poet  proposed  to  praise  God  in  the  Temple, 
the  anti-sacrificial  glossator  could  easily  add  that  sacrifices  of  any  description 
were  out  of  place  as  compared  with  a  life  of  thankful  service.  The  glossator 
could  naturally  include  a  reference  to  the  sin-offering  in  order  to  express  his 
slighting  appreciation  of  the  ritual  system  generally,  where  such  a  reference 
would  have  been  entirely  inappropriate  in  the  original  psalm. 


62  THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS 

consideration  when  viewed  in  the  Hght  of  other  similar  psalms 
where  the  data  are  more  pronounced.  In  w.  ^"^  "  the  righteous- 
ness of  God  as  well  as  his  mercy  is  referred  to.  In  view  of  the 
preceding  context  this  righteousness  must  have  been  displayed 
in  the  deliverance  of  the  speaker  from  his  distress.  But  could 
an  individual  feel  so  sure  that  God  was  righteous  in  espousing 
his  cause  ?  The  silent  implication  of  vv.  ^^'  "  is  that  it  is  again 
the  community  which  is  speaking,  and  which  feels  conscious  of 
its  innocence  as  contrasted  with  its  enemies.  This  view  is  borne 
out  by  the  accretions  which  follow,  which  were  evidently  attached 
by  some  one  who  understood  the  "I"  of  the  original  psalm  as  a 
collective.  Only  so  can  the  alternation  of  the  consciousness  of 
sin  (as  against  God,  v.  ^^)  and  of  innocence  as  against  the  speaker's 
enemies  be  understood.* 

Finally,  there  remains  to  be  considered  Ps.  69^^  Ps.  69,  as 
has  long  been  recognized,  shows  the  closest  affinity  with  Ps.  40. 
It  is  noteworthy  also  that  it  is  followed  by  Ps.  70,  which  is  the 
same  as  40  ^*'^^.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  Pss.  40  and  69 
(70)  were  exposed  to  the  same  influences,  and  lived  at  least  a 
part  of  their  literary  life  in  common.  But  further,  the  close  of 
Ps.  69  offers  a  remarkable  parallel  to  the  close  of  Ps.  51.  In 
both  there  is  a  repudiation  of  sacrifice.  In  both  there  is  a  refer- 
ence to  restoration  (Jerusalem,  the  cities  of  Judah).t  Is  Ps.  69 
a  temple  Psalm,  and  is  v.  ^-  a  gloss  ?  Space  forbids  an  adequate 
discussion  of  the  first  point,  as  it  involves  the  discussion  of  a 
whole  group  of  psalms,  notably  Pss.  22  and  38.  I  can  only  ex- 
press my  own  belief  that  in  spite  of  the  strongly  individualizing 
traits  in  this  Psalm  (cf.  especially  v.  ^)  the  proof  that  the  "I"  is 
collective  is  conclusive.  But  is  v.  ^^  a  gloss  ?  The  contextual 
proof  in  the  present  case  is  not  so  strong  as  at  5P^'  ^^  and  40^-  ^, 
for  the  reason  that  Ps.  69  is  so  loosely  put  together  that  it  is  difla- 
cult  to  discriminate  the  glosses  from  the  original  elements.  Yet 
any  one  can  feel  the  abruptness  of  w.  ^^'  ^"  in  their  present 
context. 

The  data  bearing  upon  our  subject  have  now  been  reviewed. 

*  Cf.  Smend  and  especially  Ps.  38 

t  Cf.  69^-  with  51i«.  l^  and'ee^''  with  51=°.  The  phrase  n'cm  313  ig  also  found 
only  in  these  two  psalms  (cf.  51^  and  69'^)  though  little  weight  need  be  at- 
tached to  this  fact. 


THE   ANTI-SACRIFICIAL  PSALMS  63 

Pss.  51"'  ^®,  40^'  '  and  69'*'  ^^  contain  expressions  highly  inappro- 
priate in  psalms  originally  written  for  use  in  the  temple  service. 
To  these  must  be  added  Ps.  50  in  its  entirety.  The  first  three 
passages  are,  however,  found  in  psalms  in  which  the  "I"  is 
almost  certainly  a  collective,  in  other  words  in  psalms  that  were 
after  all  intended  for  the  temple  worship.  This  incongruity 
cannot  be  explained  away  by  exegetical  devices.  What  is  to  be 
done?  If  these  passages  are  examined  in  relation  to  their  con- 
texts they  are  found  to  stand  in  no  organic  relationship  to  their 
contexts.  The  question  at  once  presses:  Are  they  not  glosses? 
But  how  then  did  they  come  to  be  intruded  into  these  temple 
psalms  ?  At  this  point  the  curious  position  of  Ps.  50,  which  was 
not  originally  a  temple  psalm,  and  its  intimate  relationship  to 
51^^'  ^®  suggest  that  these  psalms,  and  therefore  also  in  all  prob- 
ability the  allied  psalms,  Pss.  40  and  69,  were  taken  from  a 
psalter  which  was  collected  for  private  devotions,  and  these 
verses  which  are  so  hostile  to  the  temple  ritual  may,  therefore, 
be  best  explained  as  additions  which  were  made  to  these  originally 
temple  psalms  at  the  time  when  they  were  incorporated  in  this 
private  song-book.  One  further  remark  must  be  made.  Ps.  69 
is  not  only  intimately  connected  with  Ps.  40^"*  ^^  but  also  with 
Ps.  44.  This  latter  psalm  is  one  of  the  surest  Maccabsean 
psalms.  If  Ps.  69  were  dependent  upon  Ps.  44,  and  if  the  theory 
advanced  in  these  pages  were  adopted,  it  would  mean  that  a 
considerable  literary  history  would  have  to  be  interjected  between 
the  Maccabsean  period  and  the  present  form  of  the  Psalter. 
This  at  once  opens  up  the  whole  vast,  unsettled  question  of  the 
relationship  of  the  Psalter  to  the  history  of  the  Canon,  into  which 
it  is  impossible  to  enter  in  the  present  connection.  I  would  only 
add  that  the  priority  of  Ps.  44  to  Ps.  69  is  by  no  means  a  settled 
question.  Ps.  40  is  probably  pre-Maccabsean  as  Ben  Sira  seems 
to  be  dependent  upon  it  (cf.  the  occurrence  of  the  "tt.  Xey  '•pti' 
^T3  40^  at  Ben  Sira  51^").  But  Ps.  69  is  even  more  closely  allied 
to  Ps.  40  than  it  is  to  Ps.  44. 

Oberlin  Theological  Seminary, 
June  17,  1910. 


VII 

THE  DECLINE  OF  PROPHECY 

By  Francis  Brown 

The  prophetic  writings  of  the  Old  Testament  mark  one  of  the 
great  religious  movements  of  the  human  race,— probably  the  most 
significant  of  all,  with  one  single  exception.  They  also  present  a 
literary  phenomenon  which  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  explain  or 
understand.  The  rise  and  decline  of  any  literature  we  can 
observe,  as  a  matter  of  history,  but  we  are  seldom  able  to  account 
for  it  any  more  than  we  should  be  to  predict  it.  Antecedents  and 
concomitants  shew  themselves;  sometimes  they  look  like  causes, 
sometimes  like  occasions,  sometimes  like  secondary  influences. 
Who  shall  analyze  a  literary  situation, — especially  one  of  the 
rare,  creative  periods, — and  tabulate  its  forces  ?  Genius  refuses 
to  be  analyzed.  The  essences  whose  combination  gives  the  deli- 
cate flavour  of  a  masterpiece,  the  insight  and  the  unconstrained 
ardour  that  command  the  spirit,  cannot  be  followed  back  to  the 
lurking-places  they  emerge  from,  nor  is  the  formula  of  combina- 
tion to  be  set  down  by  chemical  symbols.  And  if  we  cannot  tell 
how  genius  awakes,  neither  can  we  give  adequate  reasons  for  its 
decline  into  slumber.  We  can  do  hardly  more  than  gather 
more  phenomena  and  establish  a  series,  which,  in  a  given  case, 
attends  the  process  at  one  end  or  the  other,  offering  hypotheses, 
if  we  like,  as  to  possible  effects  produced  by  what  seem  to  have 
the  efficiency  of  causes.  When  the  literature  is  religious  litera- 
ture, and  its  substance  is  the  life  of  the  soul  in  its  highest  rela- 
tions, we  are  least  of  all  in  a  position  to  deal  with  its  phases  by 
scientific  process,  for  there  is  always  mystery  in  religion. 

The  prophetic  literature  of  the  Hebrews,  which  the  Old 
Testament  has  preserved  to  us,  emerges  suddenly,  runs  a  long 
course,   and   gradually   dies   away.     Its   most   brilliant   period 

65 


66  THE   DECLINE   OF   PROPHECY 

stretches  over  three  centuries,  and  it  appears  at  intervals,  with 
diminishing  splendour,  for  two  or  three  centuries  more.  If  we 
compare  it,  for  duration,  with  the  Greek  drama,  or  philosophy,  or 
the  whole  classic  literature  of  the  Romans,  it  is  the  persistence  of 
it,  and  not  the  final  disappearance  of  it,  that  challenges  inquiry. 
Of  itself,  this  is  also  a  more  interesting  question,  since  the  prob- 
lems of  life  have  a  fascination  beyond  the  problems  of  death. 
And  yet  the  long  continuance  of  prophecy  adds  force  to  the  in- 
quiry why  it  was  not  longer,  and  as  a  study  in  Hebrew  religious 
history,  this  does  not  lack  significance.  And  although  the  effec- 
tive causes  may  elude  the  investigations  of  the  student,  a  survey 
of  the  circumstances  and  fundamental  conditions  will  perhaps 
be  rewarding. 

For  our  purposes  it  will  be  assumed  that  the  prophetical  writings 
of  the  Old  Testament  Canon  arrange  themselves  chronologically 
and  for  substance, — leaving  out  of  account  the  more  debateable 
matters, — as  follows:  In  the  eighth  century  B.  c.  Amos  (without 
P,  9^"-^^  and  some  other  passages),  Hosea,  Isaiah  (as  far  as 
genuine)  and  Micah  1-3;  in  the  seventh  century,  and  down  to 
586,  additions  to  Micah,  Zephaniah,  Jeremiah,  Nahum,  Habak- 
kuk,  early  Ezekiel;  in  the  sixth  century,  after  586,  late  chapters 
of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  Isaiah  40-55,  13-14^^,  with  Jeremiah 
50,  51,  Haggai,  Zechariah  1-8;  in  the  fifth  century,  Obadiah, 
Malachi,  Isaiah  56-66;  in  the  fourth  century,  Joel,  Jonah, 
Isaiah  24-27,  Zechariah  9-14. 

This  leaves  the  third  century  bare  of  any  prophetic  writing 
that  can  with  confidence  be  assigned  to  it,  and  exhibits  Daniel, 
a  late-comer,  born  of  the  Antiochian  anguish,  for  the  first  half  of 
the  second  century, — born  after  such  an  interval  that  expectation 
of  fresh  offspring  in  the  prophetic  family  had  ceased,  and  the 
prophetic  canon  had  been  closed. 

A  different  aspect  would  be  given  to  this  picture  if  we  could 
believe,  with  Duhm  and  Marti  (often  Duhm's  echo  here),  that  the 
second  century,  to  the  very  end  of  it,  and  even  the  beginning  of  the 
first  century,  must  be  looked  to  for  a  large  number  of  prophetic 
utterances,  fragmentary  or  supplementary  and  some  even  of  con- 
siderable extent,  which  have  been  incorporated  into  our  Old 
Testament.  Among  these  passages  are:  Is.  ig^^-^^  (c,  g.  c.  160), 
24-27  (not  earlier  than  John  Hyrcanus,  c.  b.  c.  128),  33  (b.  c.  162, 


THE   DECLINE   OF  PROPHECY  67 

Duhm,  163,  Marti),  34,  35  (late  in  second  century,  before  128); 
Je.  23i«ff-  (second  century),  30,  31  (id.),  32^«-",  33"-^«  (end  of 
second  century;  hence  the  whole,  Je.  32,  33,  cannot  have  reached 
its  present  form  before  about  100  B.  c),  46^"^^  (apparently  depends 
on  Is.  34,  and  must  therefore  fall  in  the  second  half  of  the  second 
century);  Zee.  9-14  (Maccabean).  This  list  is  not  at  all  ex- 
haustive, but  if  the  case  is  made  out  as  to  these  passages  there 
can  be  no  serious  objection  to  increasing  their  number.  And  in 
that  case  "the  decline  of  prophecy"  has  a  somewhat  different 
significance  from  that  usually  ascribed  to  it.  These  critics  ad- 
mit,— and  indeed  make  it  one  of  their  criteria, — a  less  original, 
less  ethical,  less  intelligible  and  effective  prophecy  in  these  late 
passages,  so  that  there  is  a  real  decline  in  quality,  as  well  as  in 
sustained  force,  but  there  is  no  entire  cessation; — the  interval  be- 
tween Je.  32,  33  and  John  the  Baptist  is  no  greater  than  that 
between  Joel  and  Daniel,  and  perhaps  less.  Our  problem  would 
still  exist,  but  its  form  would  be  changed. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this  extension  of  Old  Testament 
prophecy  are,  however,  serious  enough  to  preclude  haste  in  ac- 
cepting it. 

It  is  a  necessary  condition  of  these  dates  that  there  should  still 
have  been,  as  late  as  B.  c.  100,  great  freedom  in  adding  to  the 
older  prophecies,  and  modifying  them.  But  attention  has  been 
repeatedly  called  to  the  barrier  erected  against  this  hypothesis 
by  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament  Canon.  The  testimony  of 
Ben  Sira  is  very  clear.  Not  only  do  we  have  specific  mention  of 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel  and  The  Twelve  (Sir.  48^«-2^  49«-  «•  ''), 
shewing  the  existence  of  a  collection  of  these  books  in  the  order 
and  limits  of  our  prophetical  canon  as  early  as  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century  B.  c,  but  the  Prologue  of  the  Greek  Ben  Sira 
uses  the  term  "Prophets"  of  an  authoritative  collection  parallel 
with  "The  Law,"  and  distinguished  from  "the  other  writings." 
Duhm  and  Marti  do  not  squarely  meet  the  issue  raised  by  these 
facts.  Duhm,  by  a  side  remark,*  casts  suspicion  on  the  evidence 
of  Ben  Sira,  but  without  any  apparent  reason  except  the  exigencies 
of  his  own  theory,  and  both  he  and  Marti  endeavour  to  break  the 

*  "  Indessen  beweist  sie  (i.  e.,  the  passage  Sir.  48-'"-*)  nicht  allzu  viel,  weil  es 
keineswegs  sicher  ist,  dass  der  Siracide  sie  verfasst  habe."  Duhm,  Jesaia, 
Einl.  vii. 


68  THE   DECLINE    OF   PROPHECY 

force  of  it  by  claiming  that  whatever  canonicity  attached  to  the 
prophetic  writings  in  the  second  century  was  not  such  as  to  pre- 
vent later  modification.  It  is  true  that  we  do  not  know  precisely 
what  degree  of  significance  should  be  ascribed  to  canonicity  at 
its  beginning.  A  certain  amount  of  fluidity  in  the  material  may 
be  admitted.  But  it  is  not  permissible  to  deny  all  significance 
to  canonicity  even  in  its  early  stages.  Paragraphs  might  be 
added,  here  and  there,  to  a  canonical  work,  but  that  editors  had 
a  free  hand  with  it,  incorporated  what  they  pleased,  carried  on, 
indeed,  the  whole  work  of  compilation,  so  as  to  constitute  books 
that  did  not  exist  before,  is  too  violent  a  supposition.  If  this 
were  possible,  what  reason  is  there  why  the  Book  of  Daniel 
should  not  have  found  a  place  in  the  canon  of  the  prophets  ? 

Nor  is  there  any  such  complete  proof  of  the  connection  between 
any  one  of  the  prophecies  under  discussion  and  the  historical 
conditions  of  the  second  century  b.  c.  as  to  justify  such  a  dictum 
as  this  of  Marti's:  "  Wenn  es  sich  namlich  zeigt,  dass  das  Buch 
Jesaja  Stiicke  enthalt,  die  erst  um  100  v.  Chr.  entstanden  sein 
konnen,  so  hat  dasselbe  eben  seine  jetzige  Gestalt  erst  nachher 
erhalten"  (Marti,  Jesaja,  Einl.  xiv).  It  is  sounder  argument  to 
say:  "If  it  appears  that  the  Book  of  Isaiah  was  included  in  a 
collection  of  prophets,  having  canonical  value,  as  early  as  B.  c. 
200,  it  cannot  have  been  put  together  at  a  later  date,  nor  contain 
long  passages  from  the  year  100  b.  c." 

There  is,  no  doubt,  in  certain  cases,  a  weakening  of  style,  and 
an  absence  of  precision  and  vigour  of  thought  in  the  passages  in 
question,  which  mark  them  as  probably  late,  but  the  problem 
is  as  to  the  range  of  time  within  which  such  additions  are  likely 
to  have  been  made.  The  most  plausible  ground  for  the  second 
century  as  a  field  for  these  additions  is  afforded  in  the  cases 
where  an  historical  situation  seems  to  offer  a  suitable  occasion, 
as  when  Zee.  12^  ^-  is  connected  with  the  murder  of  Onias  in  170 
(v.  "),  or  Is.  33  fitted  into  the  year  b.  c.  163,  or  Is.  24-27  made 
to  reflect  the  attack  of  John  Hyrcanus  on  Samaria  in  12S.  But 
we  do  not  know  the  history  of  these  centuries  well  enough  to 
allow  ourselves  to  be  shut  up  to  these  identifications  in  the  face 
of  the  obstacles  already  named. 

Besides,  in  no  one  of  the  passages  in  question  is  there  any- 
thing approaching  the  Hebrew  of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  to  say 


THE   DECLINE   OF  PROPHECY  69 

nothing  of  Ben  Sira.  The  decline  in  style  is  such  as  one  observes 
in  other  literatures.  "When  a  new  vein  is  struck  the  first  workers 
in  it  are  fresh,  vigorous,  and  often  compact  in  style.  They  are 
impelled  by  a  force  within  them.  They  have  no  models;  they 
themselves  establish  the  standard.  There  is  no  suggestion  of 
imitation  in  them,  for  they  have  none  to  imitate.  They  may  be 
abrupt,  daring,  lacking  finish,  but  they  are  themselves,  and  their 
own  strength  carries  them,  without  self-assertion  or  display. 
The  late-comers,  even  when  equally  sincere,  and  of  dimensions 
as  large,  are  of  necessity  somewhat  dominated  by  the  standard 
already  set.  Their  style  has  something  secondary  in  it.  It 
grows  diffuse.  It  may  grow  weak,  or,  if  its  thought  is  still  too 
noble  to  lose  power  of  expression,  it  may  lose  restraint  and  take 
on  exaggeration.  The  prophetic  style  suffers  in  these  ways  in 
the  later  centuries. 

It  will  be  freely  allowed  that,  but  for  the  evidence  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  prophetic  canon,  including  books  bearing  these  names, 
before  the  occurrences  of  the  second  century,  these  occurrences 
would  fairly  demand  consideration  as  possible  settings  for  some 
of  the  prophecies.  But  it  is  not  clear,  at  all,  that  they  should 
then  be  preferred  to  other  settings.  Even  if  they  were  more 
plausible  than  any  others,  the  history  of  interpretation  as  illus- 
trated by  the  titles  of  the  Psalms  ought  to  warn  us  against  attach- 
ing too  much  weight  to  any  set  of  ingenious  combinations,  when 
we  are  so  ignorant  as  to  long  periods  of  time  in  the  last  four  hun- 
dred years  of  Israel's  life  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  There  was 
much  more  reason,  from  the  postulate  that  the  Psalms  were  com- 
posed by  David,  for  ascribing  Ps.  51  to  the  time  "  when  Nathan 
the  prophet  came  unto  him"  than,  from  the  postulate  that  cer- 
tain portions  of  the  books  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  were  not 
written  by  the  prophets  whose  names  they  bear,  for  fixing  their 
date  by  certain  historical  situations  in  the  second  century. 
We  may  look  at  some  specimens  of  the  alleged  evidence: 
Zee.  9-14  belong  to  late  prophecy,  and  11*'"  is  a  passage 
among  the  most  striking  in  the  prophetic  books.  Marti  under- 
stands the  ruthless  shepherd  of  vv.  ^®-  "  to  be  Alkimus  (161  or 
160),  and  the  three  shepherds  cut  off  "in  one  month"  (11^)  to  be 
earlier  high-priests,  Lysimachus  (c.  171),  Jason  (170),  and 
Menclaus  (170) — this  after  Rubinkam.     The  interpretation  re- 


70  THE    DECLINE   OF   PROPHECY 

quires  a  liberal  stretching  of  the  "month,"  but  this  is  not  really 
diflBcult.  One  would  expect,  however,  a  more  substantial  appre- 
ciation of  Stade's  work  on  Zee.  9-14  (ZATW,  1881-82),  in  which 
the  date  is  given  as  between  306  and  278  (ZATW,  1882,  pp. 
293  f .,  305).  On  the  various  theories  of  the  "  three  shepherds," 
11^  see  (infer  al.)  Driver,  Minor  Proph.,  ii:  New  Century 
Bible,  254. 

As  to  the  reference  of  Zee.  12^"  to  the  murder  of  Onias  III  in 
170  B.  c.  (Rubinkam,  Marti),  this  is  only  one  among  many  theoret- 
ical possibilities.  Most  recognize  that  the  attempt  to  identify  the 
person  originally  referred  to  here  is  hopeless.  Was  Onias  the 
only  public  man  unjustly  killed  in  Jerusalem,  from  b.  c.  400  to 
100?  No  process  of  exclusion  can  force  us  to  the  event  of  b.  c. 
170,  when  we  are  wholly  ignorant  of  what  we  may  be  excluding. 

Consider  Isaiah  33,  of  which  Duhm  speaks  as  follows:  "Dem 
apokalyptischen  Character  der  in  Vierzeilern  abgefassten  Dich- 
tung  entspricht  der  zerhackte,  kiinstliche  Stil;  die  Sprache  ist 
die  der  spatesten  Psalmen.  Der  Feind,  der  noch  vergewaltigen 
darf,  das  freche  Volk,  das  *  zahlte  und  wog,'  kann  nur  das  Heer 
der  Seleuciden  sein,  dessen  Soldner,  aus  aller  Welt  zusammen- 
geweht  (vgl.  1  Mak.  6^^)  eine  unverstandliche  Sprache  reden. 
Wie  es  scheint,  ist  Jerusalem  vom  Feinde  eingenommen  und 
verratherisch  behandelt  worden.  Der  Eroberer  scheint  Antio- 
chus  Eupator  gewesen  zu  sein  und  demnach  unser  Gedicht  etwa 
in  das  Jahr  162  a.  Chr.  zu  fallen"  (Duhm,  Jesaia,  ad  loc). 

Of  the  arguments  contained  in  this  passage  from  Duhm  it  is 
enough  to  say: 

1.  The  apocalyptic  character  of  the  chapter  is  not  strongly 
pronounced.  The  author  does  not  hide  his  thought  under  ob- 
scure symbols,  nor  dwell  on  distant  outcomes.  The  apocalyptic 
touches  are  of  the  earlier  kind.  A  comparison  with  Daniel 
proves  this. 

2.  The  disconnected  and  artificial  style  is  peculiar  to  no  post- 
exilic  century,  as  far  as  we  know,  and  may  be  a  personal  idio- 
syncrasy. 

3.  The  language  shews  many  post-exilic  relationships,  but, 
again,  is  fixed  by  nothing  as  late  as  the  second  century.  The 
most  careful  examination  of  the  language  has  been  exhibited  by 
Cheyne,  Intr.  to  the  Book  of  Isaiah  (1895),  who,  in  view  of  it. 


THE   DECLINE    OF   PROPHECY  71 

says  (p.  171):  "On  the  ground  of  the  vocabulary  alone,  one 
could  not  venture  to  claim  chap,  xxxiii  as  post-exilic,— it  might 
conceivably  belong  to  the  last  century  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah.'* 

4.  Why  must  the  foe  be  the  mercenary  army  of  the  Seleucids, 
on  account  of  their  unintelligible  language  ?  Does  Is.  28"  refer 
to  the  mercenary  army  of  the  Seleucids  ? 

On  the  other  hand  there  is  a  possible  indication  in  Is.  33"'^° 
that  its  date  is  a  good  deal  earlier  than  the  second  century. 
There  is  a  strong  suggestion  in  these  verses  of  Ps.  15,  and  even 
if  a  large  part  of  Is.  33'^  be  a  late  amplification, — too  detailed  and 
precise  to  be  likely  in  the  impassioned  context  (which  is  the 
opinion  of  Duhm  and  Marti,  and  considered,  as  an  hypothesis, 
by  Cheyne,  Intr.,  but  by  no  means  certain), — still  the  suggestion 
remains,  although  less  definite.  But  if  literary  dependence  ex- 
ists, it  is  surely  not  a  dependence  of  the  vigorous,  poetic  outburst 
of  Is.  33^*  ^-  on  the  sober,  moralistic  Ps.  15.  Now  Ps.  15  belonged 
to  the  relatively  early  collection  of  Psalms  known  by  the  name  of 
"David,"  made  certainly  not  later  than  the  third  century,  b.  c, 
and  perhaps  in  the  fourth.  If,  then,  Ps.  15  depends  on  Is.  33, 
the  latter  might  fall  naturally  into  the  fourth  century. 

The  arguments  for  placing  Is.  34,  35  late  in  the  second  century 
(but  before  128  B.  c.)  are  of  a  vague  character,  and  make  the 
impression  of  being  largely  subjective.  In  fact  Is.  34  suggests 
Joel,  Malachi,  and,  notably,  Zephaniah,  although  less  concrete 
than  these,  especially  the  last  two.  It  is  probably  later  than 
Zephaniah,  and  post-exilic.  It  may  be  later  than  Malachi,  or 
even  than  Joel,  but  need  not  be  much  later.  The  evidences  of 
dependence  "on  very  late  passages  of  Isaiah"  (Marti)  either  are 
imaginary,  or  raise  more  questions  than  they  answer.  The 
phrase  nin'»  '^SD,  34*^  ("  einer  der  sonderbarsten  Satze  in  alien 
Prophetenschriften,"  Duhm)  does  not  lose  its  strangeness  by 
being  placed  in  the  second  century,  if  it  be  a  designation  of  the 
writer's  own  work,  as  Duhm's  own  explanation  on  this  theory 
should  convince  any  reader.  WTiy,  however,  may  not  the  refer- 
ence be  to  Je.  50^^  ^*  (not  Jeremian,  but  from  the  middle  third  of 
the  sixth  century),  with  a  reference  to  "^SSn  7j?ip  of  Je.  36",  or 
even,  possibly,  to  Is.  13"°"^^  and  the  sense  be  that  all  the  desola- 
tion usually  predicted  by  the  writings  of  Yahwe's  servants  for 
presumptuous  nations  shall  befall  Edom?     O.  C.  Whitehouse, 


72  THE    DECLINE    OF   PKOPHECY 

Isaiah:  New  Century  Bible,  has  still  another  theory,  comparing 
Ps.  139^^ 

Isaiah  35,  again,  has  striking  resemblances  with  chaps.  40-55, 
but  is  probably  late^  than  this  writing;  a  few  generations,  how- 
ever, will  answer  all  the  requirements  of  the  case. 

Isaiah  24-27  is  ascribed  by  Duhm  and  Marti  to  the  times  of 
John  Hyrcanus  (135-105)  and  Alexander  Jannseus  (104-78); 
this  latter  date  applies  to  25^'",  whose  exultation  over  Moab  is 
connected  with  Alexander's  reign  by  the  slender  thread  of  a  line 
of  Josephus,  Aiit.  xiii,  13.  5:  "He  also  overcame  the  Moabites 
and  Gileadites,  who  were  Arabians,  and  made  them  pay  tribute" 
(Marti  assigns  this  with  less  confidence  than  Duhm  to  Alexander's 
time,  and  gives  the  later  years  of  John  Hyrcanus  as  an  alternative). 
The  symbolic  designations  of  hostile  peoples,  27\  are  identified 
with  the  Parthians,  the  Syrians  and  the  Egyptians — the  Par- 
thians  appearing  on  the  scene  as  a  plundering  horde,  about  129. 
Jerusalem  had  already  been  besieged  by  Antiochus  Sidetes,  who 
insisted  on  severe  terms  (Jos.,  Ant.  xiii,  8.  2-4),  and  this  is  re- 
flected in  24^""^^  The  city  destroyed,  in  25^-  ^  is  Samaria,  re- 
duced by  John  Hyrcanus;  the  "strong  nation,  city  of  peoples" 
(25^)  is  Rome.  All  this  is  ingenious  and  plausible,  but  in  no 
detail  compelling — as  it  ought  to  be,  to  overcome  the  mighty 
presumption  of  the  completed  canon  of  the  Prophets, — and  the 
combination  of  plausible  but  not  conclusive  details  does  not 
make  a  convincing  whole. 

The  deeper  reason  for  looking  into  the  second  century  for 
these  chapters  arises  from  the  apocalyptic  character  of  them, 
which  suggests  the  influences  that  produced  the  Book  of  Daniel, 
and  from  such  an  advanced  theological  idea  as  that  of  resurrection 
(26^'').  But  even  this  proves,  on  examination,  not  to  be  decisive 
— if  this  kind  of  argument  could  ever  be  decisive;— it  rather  leads 
to  an  opposite  conclusion,  because  the  apocalyptic  of  Daniel  is 
much  more  developed  and  sustained,  probably  therefore  later, 
and  the  teaching  of  resurrection  in  Dn.  12^  including  bad  as  well 
as  good,  is  a  distinct  advance  on  Is.  26^^  We  should  be  led  thus 
to  the  third  century,  and  might  go  back  as  far  as  the  fourth,  where 
also  historical  settings  have  been  found  for  our  chapters. 
Whether  we  can  settle  upon  any  one  with  confidence  is,  in  the 
present,  still  meagre,  condition  of  our  historical  knowledge  of 


THE   DECLINE   OF   PROPHECY  73 

these  centuries,  not  important  (on  particular  theories  v.  Cheyne, 
Intr.  to  Isaiah,  cf.  Stade,  ZATW,  1882,  pp.  298-306). 

Space  will  not  permit  even  so  brief  a  summary  as  the  foregoing 
of  the  arguments  concerning  the  other  passages  which  are  ascribed 
by  Duhm  and  Marti  to  the  second  century.  But  it  is  worth 
while  to  illustrate  the  defective  method  of  argument  by  which 
the  claim  is  sometimes  propped  up. 

Duhm  grants  that  Je.  30'^  *^-  imitates  Jeremiah,  but  argues  for  its 
very  late  date  on  the  ground  that  1^\  v.  ",  means  "  bear  a  child," 
while  the  same  word  in  the  older  literature  means  also  "  beget." 
This  would  be  absurd  here,  and  the  ambiguity  would  forbid  its 
use,  according  to  Duhm.  l?"*  does,  of  course,  mean  "beget," 
sometimes,  in  the  older  literature,  although  this  meaning  is  rela- 
tively uncommon;  but  it  has  the  same  meaning  occasionally  in 
the  later  language,  as  well.  The  passages  are:  1  Ch.  I**'-  "• 
13.  18. 20  Ql  Qn  ;^o),  Pr.  17^  23=='  ^  Dn.  11'— quite  enough  to 
shew  that  this  sense  of  the  word  was  familiar  in  the  third  and 
second  centuries.  Ambiguity  then  did  not  forbid  its  use,  and  in 
Pr.  17^^  we  have  the  pt.  1^%  as  here.  In  each  case  it  is  the  con- 
text that  relieves  the  ambiguity.  The  author  of  Je.  30"  passes 
rapidly  from  nJT  1^^  to  the  phrase  nibv^  'l'':f'?n-^y  l^"*  ^22  b::, 
which  interprets  the  preceding.  Absolutely  nothing  is  gained 
by  making  this  late. 

Again,  in  v.  ^,  Duhm  makes  2pV.\  a  mark  of  late  date: — "  Jakob 
.  .  .  wie  die  spateren  Schriftsteller  gern  die  ganze  Judenheit  in 
und  ausser  Palastina  nennen  (vgl.  zu  Ps.  59^*)." 

In  Ps.  59'*  we  have:    p.S*-  •'£DS^  2pV'.^  bpQ  D^-^«-''r)  Ip"!, 

on  which  Duhm  (Marti,  Kurzer  ITandkomm.)  says:  "Die  Enden 

der  Erde  kommen  desshalb  in  Betracht,  weil  'Jakob,'  oft  ein 

Ausdruck  fiir  die  ganze  Judenheit,  iiber  die  ganze  Erde  zerstreut 

ist."     This  makes  no  progress,  for  it  does  not  prove  that  "  Jacob," 

as  national  name,  is  peculiar  to  the  time  when  Jewry  was  scattered 

over  the  earth,  and  is  therefore  a  sign  of  late  date. 

In  fact,  who  does  not  recall  Is.  40",  41«-  »,  42^*,  43'-  "•  '\ 
441.  5.  21^  454^  4(33^  4gi2^  495.  6  Qj^  j^ii  of  ^^.j^i(,i^  ^pj,,  js  II  t,^»-i-,); 

"King  of  Jacob,"  4PS  "Mighty  One  of  Jacob,"  49=^^,  "seed  of 
Jacob,"  45'^  (but  possibly  personal  here),  "house  of  Jacob," 
48S  Ez.  20'  (  II  "Israel"),  "Jacob"  Ez.  39"'  (  ||  "house  of 
Israel"),  La.  1'^  2*-  ^;  but  also  earlier  still:  "house  of  Jacob," 


74  THE   DECLINE   OF  PROPHECY 

Is.  2\  cf.  8"  and  (all  ||  "Israel"),  Dt.  33^^  Nu.  24^- ^^  23% 
Mi.  3^-  *•  '. — ipy  therefore  appears  to  be  no  mark  of  date  at 
all;  it  could  be  used  of  the  people  compact  in  their  own  land  or 
of  the  same  people  widely  dispersed,  as  the  case  required. 

Once  more,  on  Je.  30^\  Duhm  remarks:  "Es  fallt  auf,  dass 
der  Verfasser  den  Herrscher  mit  dem  Ausdruck  bezeichnet 
["T'n!f<,  ^tt'D],  der  in  den  spateren  Schriften  (Neh.  Chr.  Psalmen) 
fiir  die  Notablen  der  Gemeinden  gebraucht  wird,  aber  das  Wort 
Konig  vermeidet.  Veilleicht  erwartet  er  die  Aufrichtung  des 
Konigthums  noch  nicht  fiir  die  nachste  Zeit.  ...  Er  hat 
wohl  die  zeit  eines  Alexander  Janneeus  noch  nicht  erlebt." 

— But  D''"!''^^  is  used  of  the  "notables"  as  early  as  Ju.  5^^-  ". 
And  did  Ezekiel  write  in  Hasmonean  times  because  he  avoided 
the  word  "king"  and  spoke  of  the  future  "prince"  (^^''^3,  Ez. 
34=^,  37",  44^- '  +  16t.)  ?  S-'bi,  U'^^t}  are  used  much  more 
often  than  *l''^t<  for  the  "notables  of  the  congregation"  in  the 
later  literature:  Ex.  16^%  Lv.  4^%  Nu.  1^^-  ^^  and  often  (more 
than  70t.)  in  P;  also  1  Ch.  2^°,  ^\  h\  T\  2  Ch.  P,  51  As  for 
7U^D,  this  is  a  good  Isaian  word  for  "  notables "  of  the  people. 
Is.  28".  And  why  might  not  Jeremiah  use  "1"'^^;^  and  /^JS,  as 
well  as  Ezekiel  t*''^^,  or  Deutero-Isaiah  IJ?,  T'-SJ  and  n*l^p 
D'^ps??  Duhm  himself  (Nowack,  Handkomm.)  gives  a  Messi- 
anic interpretation  to  Is.  55*,  and  T'Ji,  also,  has  abundant 
early  attestations  in  the  required  sense. — Moreover,  7Nlt'i3  /B'iD 
is  said  of  the  future  deliverer  in  Mi.  5%  which  Marti  places  no 
later  than  b.  c.  500. 

One  of  the  most  attractive  arguments  for  the  Hasmonean 
date  of  Je.  30^^  is  based  on  the  clause:  ^^^-ns'  nij;  Txrf^^T,  ""D 
"•  Di<J  ""^S  T\'0'h,  v.'^;  the  whole  sentence  reads:  "And  I  will 
bring  him  [the  ruler]  near  and  he  shall  approach  unto  me; 
for  who  is  he  who  hath  pledged  his  heart  to  approach  unto  me? 
saith  "»."  "Pledged  his  heart"  means  "given  his  heart  in 
pledge,"  a  figure  equivalent  to  "taken  his  life  in  his  hand"; 
"  who  hath  ventured,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  to  approach  unto  me  ?" 
The  conception  of  great  peril  in  approaching  deity  is  not  a  token 
of  late  date  in  itself  (Gn.  32'",  Ex.  33'°,  Ju.  6'%  13^  Is.  6^;  in  all 
these  seeing  God  is  spoken  of).  But  the  ritualistic  interpretation 
is  suggested  here,  as  (also  +  ~7S')  Ex.  19^'.    This,  however,  does 


THE    DECLINE    OF   PROPHECY  75 

not  necessarily  prove  a  late  date,  for  Ex.  19^^  is  from  J.  In  fact 
Ex.  19^^  is  the  only  passage  where  """^N  '^'^^  is  used  with  jHi 
as  its  subject,  so  that  this  clause  in  Je.  does  not  suggest  Hasmonean 
times.  Vri3"lpn,  preceding,  is  more  characteristic  of  priestly 
documents;  ^^"^pn  occurs  with  Aaron,  or  other  priests  or  Levites, 
as  its  object,  Ex.  29*-  ^  40^'-  ",  Lv.  7'^  8"-  ''•  '\  Nu.  8'-  ", 
16^-  ^-  *•  ^^  In  Nu.  16,  and  only  here,  does  it  appear  with  "» as 
subject,  or  followed  by  "'"^S.*  Thus  there  is  no  recurrence  of 
this  construction  later  than  P,  in  the  fifth  century.  If  it  proceeds 
from  the  second  century  in  Je.  30^^  it  stands  alone  there.  The 
only  reason  for  thinking  of  the  second  century  at  all  lies  in  a 
supposed  reference  in  this  passage  to  a  ruler  who  was  at  the  same 
time,  like  the  Hasmoneans,  the  high-priest.  The  sense  would 
then  be:  I  have  given  him  access  to  me,  as  true  high-priest,  and 
woe  to  the  man  who  assumes  to  be  high-priest  without  my  per- 
mission! Various  usurping  claimants  of  the  high-priesthood 
might  be  in  mind. 

It  may  perhaps  be  worth  observing  that  the  phrase  is  never 
used  elsewhere  with  reference  to  specifically  high-priestly  func- 
tions. Nu.  16^-  ^'^  it  is  employed  of  Yahweh's  allowing  non- 
priestly  Levites  to  approach  him  for  their  subordinate  duties. 
This  somewhat  reduces  the  probability  of  a  reference  to  the 
high-priesthood  in  Je.  30-^  Moreover,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
an  author  who  was  greatly  concerned  with  the  high-priesthood 
of  the  Hasmoneans  would  emphasize  also  the  fact  that  the  ruler 
was  one  of  the  people  themselves  (^30p,  iU'lpD).  He  would 
have  been  likely  to  think  this  too  suggestive  of  Jeroboam,  who 
made  Israel  sin,  and  appointed  priests  C>n  niifpp  (1  K.  12^S 
13^^),  "from  the  ends  (=  whole)  of  the  people,"  from  the  people 
at  large. 

The  position  of  Messianic  ruler  was  of  itself  a  sacred  one  with- 
out his  being  a  priest,  (cf.  Ps.  2,  and  Hg.  2^^  Zc.  6^^-  ^^  where  rd. 
iJ-'O^O  ]nD  [yttnn"»]  n^m  with  We  Now  GASm,  C.  F.  Kent,  v. 
LXX.)  cf.  Giesebrecht,  Jeremiah.     And  of  course,  if  the  Messiah 


*  In  Lv.  7^^  no  subj.  is  expressed.  Baentsch  proposes '■- as  subject  here 
also,  but  the  presumption  is  strongly  against  it,  both  from  the  fact  that  l[??i 
nin>>  follows,  and  because  of  the  presence  of  ntr'c  as  subject  in  Ex.  and  in 
Lv.  8«"-2*. 


76  THE    DECLINE   OF   PROPHECY 

was  sometimes  conceived  as  a  militant  priest,  it  might  be  after 
the  order  of  Melchisedek  (Ps.  110*). 

An  argument  for  the  very  late  date  of  Je.  31^^  is  found  by 
Duhm  in  the  clause  "l"l2n  "Dn  Itl'K.  He  queries  whether  "ilTK 
refers  to  "day"  or  "covenant,"  "oder  ob  es,  wie  die  LXX 
annimmt,  so  viel  wie  ^pi^,  ]V'[,  weil,  sein  soil.  Die  letztere  An- 
nahme  ist  wohl  die  natiirlichste,  fiihrt  dann  aber  auf  die  Sprache 
der  spateren  Zeit."  How  ^tTS  =  "because"  can  be  a  token 
of  post-Jeremian,  to  say  nothing  of  Hasmonean,  date  is  not  clear. 
It  occurs  Gn.  30^^  31*^  34''-  ",  Dt.  3^  Jos.  4^-  ^,  22^S  Ju.  9^^ 
1  S.  2^,  15*^  20'^  and  many  other  passages.  Even  niTS  \V\ 
with  which  Duhm  compares  it,  is  not  a  sign  of  so  late  a  date 
(Ju.  2'\  1  S.  30'^  Dt.  l'«  +). 

In  discussing  Je.  3P*  Duhm  says:  "Mit  der  Erkenntniss 
Jahves  kann  nur  die  Kenntniss  seiner  Thora  v.  ^^  gemeint  sein, 
die  lehrt,  was  in  Jahves  Augen  recht  ist,  und  die  kliiger  macht, 
als  alles  andere  in  der  Welt  (vgl.  Ps.  119®^*)."  But  this  is  only 
a  part  of  Duhm's  endeavour  to  belittle  the  spiritual  value  of  the 
"new  covenant"  of  Je.  3P^^-,  and  exegetically  is  a  begging  of 
the  question.  Furthermore,  the  usage  of  the  term  "know  '"*"  is 
against  him:  Ex.  5'  (J),  Ju.  2'\  1  S.  2'\  3^  Ho.  2^  5\  8^  Jb. 
18^  Ps.  79";  so  with  the  noun  nyn  Ho.  4^-  «•  «,  6^  Is.  IP,  58^ 
Je.  22^«,  Jb.  21",  Pr.  2'  (  ||  "•  n«n'').  The  purely  ethical  sense  of 
"  knowing  "»"  appears  distinctly  in  Ho.  4^;  2^^''  ^^  is  worth  quoting: 
".  .  .  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  in  righteousness,  and  in 
justice  and  in  kindness  and  in  mercies;  I  will  even  betroth  thee 
unto  me  in  faithfulness:  and  thou  shalt  know  '\"  Ho.  6* 
teaches  precisely  the  reverse  of  that  which  Duhm  understands 
in  Je. :  "  For  I  desire  kindness,  and  not  sacrifice,  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  God  rather  than  burnt  offerings." 

The  ceremonial  law  and  all  scribal  pedantry  are  excluded  here. 
"To  know  Yahweh"  has  had  a  long  and  noble  history  in  the 
mouth  of  the  prophets.  A  determination  to  empty  this  prophecy 
of  its  heart  and  its  spiritual  life  may  disregard  this,  but  the 
process  is  not  exegesis. 

Every  Old  Testament  scholar  must  recognize  his  enormous 
debt  to  Duhm,  whose  independence  and  vigour  have  done  so 
much  to  re-vitalize  Old  Testament  exegesis  and  criticism,  but  his 
opinions  on  the  points  under  discussion  are  certainly  misleading. 


THE   DECLINE   OF  PROPHECY  77 

It  may  be  understood,  then,  that  our  prophetic  canon  was,  in 
all  probability,  complete  about  b.  c.  200,  in  such  a  sense  that  no 
substantial  additions  and  no  radical  reconstruction  took  place 
after  that  time.  Nor  was  any  prophetic  work  issued  after  that 
date  which  later  collectors  thought  worthy  of  receiving  normative 
authority,  except  the  Book  of  Daniel.  Before  200  the  prophetic 
force  had  been  long  dwindling,  the  prophetic  personality  reced- 
ing, and  the  prophetic  style  shewing  artificiality  and  decay. 
The  decline  and  the  cessation  of  prophecy  are,  then,  actual 
phenomena. 

This  being  so,  how  far  can  we  assign  specific  reasons  for  the 
fact?  What,  at  least,  are  the  chief  coincident  phenomena 
which  may  have  tended  to  produce  it? 

1.  The  coincidence  of  a  long  period  of  national  enfeeblement 
and  subjection  with  the  period  during  which  the  decline  of 
prophecy  went  on  is  obvious  enough.  The  aim  of  the  faithful 
prophets  had  been  the  moral  life  of  the  nation,  and  the  result  of 
moral  awakening  was,  or  was  to  be,  national  strength  and  pros- 
perity. The  political  depression  of  the  people,  involving  loss  of 
independence  and,  for  many,  of  national  ambition,  did  not  corre- 
spond with  the  conditions  under  which  prophecy  had  grown  up. 
The  hopes  of  the  greater  prophets  had  not  been  primarily  mate- 
rial, but  they  had  been  distinctly  national.  The  contrast  between 
this  and  the  post-exilic  situation  tended  to  increase,  as  the  de- 
pendence of  Israel  on  Persia  and  Greece  grew  into  a  habit. 
Deutero-Isaiah,  Haggai  and  Zechariah  could  expect  national  re- 
vival more  readily  than  a  prophet  of  the  fourth  or  third  century 
could  do.  What  was  statesmanlike  in  the  prophet  found  little 
scope,  and  expectation  of  radical  change  grew  dim.  National 
aspiration  had  little  nourishment  to  share  with  religion.  The 
Maccabean  revolt,  with  its  associated  national  spirit,  vigorous 
for  a  time,  was  needed  to  evoke  even  the  one  prophetic  book  of 
Daniel. 

The  situation  must  not  be  exaggerated.  There  was,  of  course, 
a  communal  life  without  interruption  after  the  exile.  There 
was  genuine  religious  power  in  Malachi  and  Jonah  and  Zecha- 
riah 9-14,  although  national  independence  was  in  a  past  increas- 
ingly distant.  And  when  prophecy  at  length  revived,  in  John 
the  Baptizer  and  in  Jesus,  the  national  life  was  a  petty  affair. 


78  THE    DECLINE    OF   PROPHECY 

And  if  it  be  said  that  it  was  the  individualistic  note  in  the 
preaching  of  John  and  of  Jesus  that  stirred  the  conscience,  and 
the  thought  of  individual  need  that  impelled  the  speakers  them- 
selves— and  we  need  not  for  the  moment  stop  to  inquire  how 
far  this  statement  needs  to  be  qualified — one  may  ask  why  the 
prophets  had  not  drawn  from  individualism,  centuries  before,  a 
like  inspiration? 

2.  We  are  thus  led  to  consider  the  growth  of  individualism. 
The  increasing  prominence  of  the  individual  in  prophetic  eyes 
was  natural,  and  necessary.  To  assail  the  moral  corruptions 
of  their  nation  was  long  their  principal  message,  and  these  cor- 
ruptions inhered  in  individuals.  The  nation  was  corrupt  by 
reason  of  its  corrupt  members.  The  prophets  were  therefore, 
in  fact,  working,  at  least  from  the  beginning  of  their  literary 
period,  for  the  actual  promotion  of  individualism.  In  the  sev- 
enth century  and  the  sixth,  in  Micah  6,  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel, 
a  conscious  individualism  appears,  alongside  the  national  point 
of  view,  and  independent  of  it.  After  the  exile,  as  we  know, 
individualism  had  a  large  development,  especially  in  the  mor- 
alists. 

But  while  prophecy  could  regard  the  individual  as  a  constituent 
part  of  the  nation,  and  subsidiary  or  injurious  thereto,  and  even, 
occasionally,  consider  the  individual  by  himself,  there  were  rea- 
sons why,  as  a  movement,  it  could  not  readily  adapt  itself  to 
the  new  individualism, — the  outgrowth  largely  of  its  own  rebukes 
and  exhortations.  There  is,  of  course,  no  intrinsic  difficulty  in 
preaching  God's  will  to  individuals,  as  such,  when  you  see  them 
in  their  large  relations.  But  the  prophets  were  not  at  once  in  a 
position  to  see  the  individual  in  his  large  relations,  when  the  con- 
ception of  nationality  was  dwarfed.  You  must  consider  the 
large  relations  of  an  individual  either  in  space  or  in  time.  You 
may  conceive  him  as  a  member  of  a  great,  and  important,  com- 
munity, present  in  reality  or  in  thought,  and  as  getting  his  im- 
portance from  that  membership.  Or.  you  may  conceive  of  him 
as  a  being  with  seeds  of  immortality  in  him,  working  out  his  long 
destiny,  and  getting  his  importance  from  his  immeasurable 
duration.  Now  the  personal  hereafter  was  a  shadowy  and  in- 
effective idea  to  most  of  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Therefore,  when   the   communal  importance  of  the  individual 


THE   DECLINE   OF   PROPHECY  79 

dwindled,  with  the  community  itself,  there  was  no  conviction  of 
his  endless  existence  to  take  the  place  of  his  communal  impor- 
tance in  the  prophet's  mind.  There  might  still  be  kindly  interest 
and  a  desire  to  do  good,  but  nothing  to  stir  deep  convictions  and 
arouse  passionate  enthusiasm  such  as  was  needed  to  sustain  the 
prophetic  vocation.  Reflection,  moralizing,  ethical  precept — 
shrewd,  sagacious,  epigrammatic — took  the  place  of  fiery  denun- 
ciation and  impassioned  appeal.  The  prophet  gave  place — not 
wholly,  but  largely — to  the  sage,  the  living  message  to  the  in- 
genious aphorism,  and  the  wise  utterance  of  the  careful  preceptor 
became  the  main  resource  in  the  training  of  personal  life.  The 
era  of  the  moralists  gave  place  to  the  personal  messages  of  John 
the  Baptizer,  and  Jesus,  only  when  the  life  of  the  individual  was 
seen  continuing  into  a  new  dispensation  in  the  realized  kingdom 
of  God. 

3.  The  rise  of  the  moralists  was  in  itself  an  influence  unfavour- 
able to  any  revival  of  prophecy.  They  reasoned  out  the  prin- 
ciples that  should  govern  human  conduct.  Calmness  was  a 
mark  of  them,  quiet  rationality  as  opposed  to  impetuous  fervour. 
It  was  the  reign  of  careful  judgment  and  not  a  rush  of  scorching 
fire.  Their  teaching  of  righteousness  was  in  large  measure  a 
thing  of  rules  and  maxims.  An  atmosphere  of  temperate  wisdom 
was  created,  in  which  prophetic  ardour  perhaps  found  difficulty 
in  breathing.  Thus,  notwithstanding  many  evidences  of  various 
and  contrary  schools  of  thought  and  qualities  of  temper  in  the 
Jewish  people  in  Palestine,  the  wide  spread  of  the  moralizing 
temper  formed  a  natural,  though  partial,  barrier  against  the  re- 
adjustment of  prophecy  to  the  new  conditions.  The  moral 
precept  was  more  at  home  than  the  prophetic  appeal,  at  a  time 
when  the  individual  was  simply  a  human  unit,  whose  life  was  of 
a  few  years  only. 

4.  A  kind  of  cosmopolitanism,  also,  was  growing  up,  which  was, 
to  some  extent,  an  enemy  of  zeal,  and  tended  toward  indifference 
in  religious  matters.  How  strong  this  was  appears  from  the 
importance  of  the  Hellenizing  party  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 
It  appears  there  as  indiffcrentism  in  matters  of  ritual.  But  it 
was  not  marked  by  strenuous  effort  after  personal  righteousness 
according  to  any  prophetic  standard.  It  was  probably  not  with- 
out its  influence  on  the  moralizers,  as  appears  in  those  maxims 


80  THE   DECLINE   OF   PROPHECY 

which  are  rather  shrewd  than  saintly.     It  was  no  natural  soil  for 
the  growth  of  the  prophetic  spirit. 

5.  One  kind  of  prophecy,  indeed,  persisted,  but  it  was  an 
exception  that  proves  the  rule.  The  apocalypse,  or  exhibition  of 
the  future  in  symbolic  pictures,  had  been  used  sparingly,  if  at 
all,  by  the  early  prophets.  Their  minds  had  not  moved  in  such 
channels.  They  abound  in  figure,  but  their  expectation  is  definite 
and  their  portrayal  clear.  The  apocalyptic  interest  appears  in 
Ezekiel,  of  course,  who  dwelt  on  a  future  whose  conditions  must 
be  different  from  those  of  the  sad  and  evil  present.  Joel  illus- 
trates it.  Daniel  is  largely  given  over  to  it.  There  are  post- 
canonical  books,  like  Enoch  and  its  kin,  whose  symbolic  visions 
are  wild  and  vague.  The  apocalypse,  for  its  real  value,  needs 
more  even  than  any  other  kind  of  prophecy  to  keep  in  close 
touch  with  the  ethical,  and  to  be  connected  with  the  personal 
life  of  its  time.  To  an  increasing  degree  this  was  not  so  with 
the  Jewish  apocalyptic.  Under  the  form  of  prediction  it  cut 
loose  from  life.  It  abandoned  to  the  sages  the  care  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  his  present  moral  concerns  and  perils,  as  well  as  the 
care  of  immediate  communal  interests,  and  flung  itself  with  un- 
restrained imagination  upon  the  future.  Thus  prophecy  forgot 
its  true  concern  for  men.  Even  life  after  death  took  on  condi- 
tions remote  from  those  of  life  before.  In  this  development,  the 
prophetic  habit  impaired  the  power  to  prophesy,  and  became  a 
specific  cause,  one  may  well  think,  of  the  disappearance  of  the 
prophets, — a  habit  made  sterile  by  its  own  excesses, — perishing 
at  length  for  lack  of  ethical  content  and  touch  with  the  vital 
problems  of  men. 

6.  Probably  chief  among  the  phenomena  which  synchronize 
with  the  decline  of  prophecy,  was  the  increasing  domination  of 
the  religious  life  by  ritual.  There  is  clear  proof  that  prophecy 
was  affected  by  this  phenomenon.  Ritualist  and  moralist  lived 
easily  side  by  side,  and  at  length  united  by  amalgamation,  as 
ritual  came  to  be  regarded  as  of  the  essence  of  morals.  Not  so 
with  the  ritualists  and  the  prophets.  The  early  prophets  had 
been  foes  of  the  ritual.  A  brave  attempt  to  ethicize  the  ritual 
and  so  unite  these  religious  forces  was  made  in  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy.  This  appeared  to  be  failing  even  before  the  great 
cataclysm  of  the  exile.     What  might  have  happened  if  the  nation 


THE   DECLINE   OF  PROPHECY  81 

had  lived  on,  we  do  not  know.  But  in  the  narrower  conditions 
of  post-exilic  life,  with  the  opposition  between  prophecy  and 
ritual  broken  down  by  Deuteronomy,  and  with  Ezekiel  shewing 
prophecy  fairly  within  the  framework  of  ritual,  the  domination 
of  ritual  might  almost  have  been  foreseen.  Ritual  was  much 
better  qualified  to  govern  the  community  as  a  provincial  fragment 
of  the  Persian  empire  than  prophecy  could  be.  And  ritual,  no 
doubt,  had  its  real  service  to  render.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  see 
how,  under  the  best  post-exilic  conditions,  prophecy  could  have 
flourished  by  its  side.  Haggai,  Zechariah,  Malachi  breathed  its 
spirit,  but  their  work  was  done  in  view  of  circumstances  which 
did  not  recur.  Jonah  ignored  ritual,  and  stands  isolated.  Joel 
and  Daniel  united  ritual  and  apocalypse,  and  were  sporadic  ap- 
pearances due  to  special  emergencies.  It  would  not  be  easy  to 
shew  how  a  permanent  mating  of  prophecy  and  ritual  could  have 
come  about.  Certainly  the  revival  of  prophecy,  in  John  and  in 
Jesus,  lends  no  colour  to  any  such  probability. 

With  all  this  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that,  to  a  large  degree, 
the  work  specifically  aimed  at  by  the  ethical  prophets  was  ulti- 
mately accomplished.  Their  hope  for  a  re-established  nation  of 
wide  dominion  and  ideal  glories  was  not  realized.  The  Macca- 
bean  era,  splendid  as  it  was,  did  not  fulfil  their  expectations, 
still  less  did  the  outbreaks  and  revolts  that  followed,  down  to  the 
second  century  a.  d.  But  their  belief  in  one  only  God  was 
established,  and  this  belief  was  more  effective  in  producing  moral 
life  among  the  people  at  large,  in  the  post-exilic  centuries,  than 
anything  we  know  of  or  can  imagine  in  the  times  of  Amos  and 
of  Isaiah.  The  work  of  such  men  as  these  lived  after  them,  as  it 
always  does,  and  the  Old  Testament  prophets  had  thus,  through 
the  succession  of  generations  and  by  the  influence  of  their  written 
words,  a  great  share  in  the  revival  of  religion,  and  the  institution 
of  a  new  and  diviner  spiritual  order,  which  appeared  among  men 
as  the  local  life  of  the  nation  they  loved  and  struggled  for  was 
passing  away. 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 
September,  1910. 


VIII 

MAN  AND  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 
By  Thomas  Franklin  Day 


The  writer  wishes  in  the  following  pages  to  present  a  study 
of  the  human  aspects  of  the  Messianic  ideal;  to  show  its  rela- 
tion to  the  needs  and  hopes  of  generic  humanity;  and  to  set 
forth  the  racial  significance  of  Israel  and  the  Christ. 

The  basis  of  the  Messianic  hope  lies  in  the  intrinsic  worth  of 
man  as  a  rational  being  made  in  the  image  of  God.  Therefore, 
while  the  Messianic  hope  in  its  distinctive  sense  had  its  historic 
origin  among  the  Hebrew  people,  none  the  less  it  belongs  to  man 
as  man.  It  was  Hebraic  only  because  it  was  first  of  all  human. 
It  sprang  primarily  out  of  the  heart  of  humanity,  although  it 
took  its  initial  form  from  the  divinely  nourished  self-respect  of 
the  Israelitish  people.  The  Hebrews,  as  a  representative  people, 
first  and  most  fully  apprehended  the  truth  of  man's  essential 
dignity  as  God's  offspring.  While  the  rest  of  the  world  was 
still  groping  in  darkness,  the  secret  of  man's  larger  destiny  based 
upon  his  divine  lineage  was  made  known  to  the  chosen  people. 

The  difference  between  man  as  he  is  when  left  to  himself  and 
man  as  the  subject  of  special  revelation  is  strikingly  presented 
in  the  Book  of  Daniel  (7^^)  where,  the  world-powers  having  been 
represented  as  beasts,  the  Hebrew  people  are  designated  as  "  one 
like  unto  a  son  of  man."  It  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  the  Hebrews 
had  reached  the  human  level  while  the  other  nations  had  not 
yet  attained  thereunto.  This  is  more  than  a  mere  assertion  of 
superiority  due  to  race  prejudice.  It  is  based  upon  a  judicial 
estimate  of  the  characteristics  of  the  respective  peoples,  and 
history  justifies  the  comparison.  For,  in  the  centuries  before 
Christ,  humanity  had  attained  its  best  estate  religiously  in  Judoea. 
The  highest  human  ideals  had  there  found  their  worthiest  ex- 

83 


84  MAN  AND  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE 

ponents.  What  man  ought  to  be,  what  he  may  and  can  become, 
received  illustration  and  enforcement  on  every  page  of  Hebrew 
history.  For  this  reason  the  Hebrew  people  were  in  a  position 
to  become  the  spokesmen  for  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  was  the 
entire  race  that  uttered  itself  through  Israel.  The  hope  of 
Israel  was  the  hope  of  mankind. 

Hebrew  literature  is  at  its  best  when  it  strikes  this  universal, 
racial  note.  The  eighth  Psalm  contains  one  of  the  classic  ex- 
pressions of  Israel's  conception  of  the  intrinsic  worth  of  man  as 
man: 

"  When  I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers, 

The  moon  and  the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained; 

What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ? 

And  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ? 

For  thou  hast  made  him  but  little  lower  than  God." 

It  took  centuries  of  divine  teaching  to  make  the  Hebrew  people 
realize  this  truth.  When  they  learned  it,  it  was  not  for  them- 
selves alone,  but  for  all  peoples  to  whom  their  message  should 
come.  It  is  through  fellowship  with  God  that  man  comes  to 
himself  and  realizes  to  the  utmost  his  innate  possibilities.  By  the 
interplay  of  these  two  ideals — man's  inherent  worth  and  God's 
unstinted  favor — the  Messianic  hope  became  a  definite  and 
potent  factor  in  human  history. 

We  may  say  then  that  the  Messianic  hope  is  instinctive  in 
humanity;  that  it  is  based  on  an  inherent  sense  of  the  worth  of 
man  as  man;  that  it  came  to  its  classic  expression  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  Hebrew  people;  and  that  it  did  so  only  because  they, 
in  a  degree  far  surpassing  any  other  people,  were  the  recipients 
of  the  free  grace  of  Yahweh  who  took  them  into  fellowship  with 
himself  and,  identifying  himself  with  them  throughout  their 
history,  made  them  his  co-workers  through  the  truth  that  en- 
lightened and  the  love  that  redeemed  them. 

II 

The  Hebrew  word  rT'^D  is  not  often  used  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. It  refers  usually  to  the  priest  or  the  theocratic  king,  both 
of  whom  held  official  positions  as  representatives  of  the  nation 
and  servants  of  Yahweh.     It  is  used  perhaps  figuratively  of  the 


MAN  AND  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE  85 

patriarchs  or,  as  some  think,  of  the  nation  (Ps.  105^^).  The 
term  is  never  used  in  the  Old  Testament  of  an  ideal  person  of 
the  future,  whether  prophet,  priest  or  king.  Nor  is  it  used  in 
the  absolute  sense  of  the  Messiah.  The  references  are  uniformly 
to  historical  personages.  This  is  true  even  in  the  case  of  Cyrus, 
who  had  already  begun  his  victorious  career  when  the  great 
prophet  of  the  exile  hailed  him  as  Yahweh's  "anointed"  (Is.  45*). 
Not  until  after  the  Old  Testament  canon  was  completed  was  the 
term  Messiah  used  as  a  designation  of  the  expected  One  of  the 
future. 

Although  the  term  Messiah  was  applied  for  the  most  part  to 
individuals,  the  covenant  idea  which  underlies  it  embraced  the 
nation  as  a  whole.  Such  terms  as  "my  son,"  "my  chosen," 
possess  the  Messianic  quality  as  truly  as  the  more  distinctive 
term,  "mine  anointed";  and  these  terms  are  unquestionably 
applied  to  the  nation.  There  is  no  mistaking  their  connotation : 
they  are  signs  and  seals  of  Israel's  intrinsic  worth  in  the  eyes  of 
Yahweh.  They  constituted  the  very  soul  of  the  covenant  rela- 
tion by  which  the  Hebrew  people  were  lifted  above  the  indis- 
tinguishable mass  of  humanity  to  a  place  of  distinction.  God 
loved  the  Hebrews  and  therefore  chose  them  to  be  his  people; 
but  he  loved  them  because  they  were  men,  he  chose  them  be- 
cause they  were  his  sons. 

In  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term,  therefore,  the  Hebrews 
became  the  Messianic  people.  By  this  phrase,  more  is  meant 
than  that  Jesus  the  Messiah  was  born  of  the  stock  of  Israel. 
It  has,  as  we  shall  see,  a  real  application  to  the  chosen  people. 
But  because  the  covenant  was  not  for  Israel  only,  but  for 
the  world,  all  Messianic  titles  may  be  transferred  to  humanity 
as  a  whole.  The  human  race  is  the  Messianic  race  in  the  sense 
that  God  has  chosen  it  in  love  to  be  the  subject  of  eternal  redemp- 
tion. As  Messianic  individuals  represented  a  Messianic  nation, 
so  a  Messianic  nation  represented  the  Messianic  race  of  mankind. 
In  this  view,  the  term  "Messianic"  has  a  wide  meaning.  In  its 
most  generalized  sense,  it  embraces  the  total  of  humanity.  In 
its  more  specific  sense,  it  points  to  "Jesus  only."  The  life- 
history  of  the  Hebrew  people  forms  the  connecting  link  between 
the  two. 


86  MAN   AND  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE 


III 

Why  did  God  choose  Israel  to  be  the  nation  which  should 
represent  the  race  in  the  preliminary  stage  of  the  redemptive 
process?  Undoubtedly  it  was,  in  part,  because  the  Hebrews 
had  the  Semitic  genius  for  religion.  But  this  of  itself  would 
never  have  set  them  forward  on  their  remarkable  career  as  world- 
teacher  in  the  things  of  religion.  We  must  add  to  their  native 
aptitude  the  touch  of  divine  grace  through  special  revelation. 
There  was  something  peculiar  in  the  religious  experiences  of 
Israel.  We  are  content  to  call  it  the  whisper  of  God  in  the 
spiritual  consciousness  of  an  Abraham  or  a  Moses,  the  response 
to  which  ratified  the  divine  choice  and  opened  a  clear  pathway 
for  unbroken  spiritual  communion  with  the  divine. 

Thus  Israel  became  a  representative  people;  its  spiritual  his- 
tory presents  in  miniature  what  the  race-history  would  have 
been  under  like  conditions.  The  results  of  its  experience  re- 
main valid  for  all  time  as  a  life-asset  for  the  race.  This  was 
God's  method  of  awakening  and  developing  the  latent  hopes  of 
mankind.  He  selected  a  nation  which  should  serve  as  pupil  and 
teacher  in  one. 

When  a  people  acquire  self-consciousness,  they  take  their 
place  in  the  world  as  a  factor  to  be  reckoned  with.  Soon  or  late 
they  achieve  prestige  and  power;  they  create  a  literature  which 
enshrines  their  characteristic  spirit  and  ideals.  It  was  so  with 
the  Hebrews.  Through  the  covenant  they  awoke  to  self-con- 
sciousness as  Yahweh's  elect  people.  Their  literary  develop- 
ment waited  upon  their  political  unification,  and  when  the 
literature  began  to  take  shape,  it  embodied  the  buoyant  and 
confident  and  joyous  hope  which  never  ceased  in  the  darkest 
periods  of  their  history  to  strike  its  resonant  and  inspiring  note. 

In  the  representation  of  the  future  which  is  given  us  in  the 
earlier  literature,  no  human  figure  stands  out  in  isolated  gran- 
deur as  the  distinctive  Messiah.  We  see  only  the  ordinary 
human  functionaries  who  were  the  natural  representatives  of  the 
nation,  viz.:  The  kings  in  their  orderly  succession  (II  Sam. 
V-^y,  the  prophets  (Dt.  18'"');  and  the  priests  (Dt.  18'). 
The  central  figure  is  Yahweh  himself  who  shall  come  to  dwell 


MAN  AND  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  87 

on  Zion  as  Israel's  judge,  law-giver  and  king  (Is.  33^^).  He 
will  be  his  own  administrator;  he  will  umpire  the  causes  which 
are  brought  to  his  judgment  seat;  he  will  speak  peace  to  the 
nations;  he  will  make  Jerusalem  the  center  of  the  world's  re- 
ligious life;  the  instruments  of  war  shall  be  turned  into  the  im- 
plements of  peaceful  industry  (Is.  2^*). 

IV 

All  this  brings  us  close  to  the  universal  world-life.  We  see 
how  the  welfare  of  the  race  is  bound  up  with  the  destinies  of  the 
chosen  people.  Israel,  we  have  said,  lived  a  representative  life. 
Let  us  note  here  some  specific  instances  in  which  this  vital  fact 
appears : 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  prophecy  that  paints  the  picture  of 
the  world-future.  And  Hebrew  prophecy  is  characterized  by 
breadth  of  sympathy  for  all  human  needs  and  by  a  ready  adapta- 
tion to  all  human  conditions.  Everywhere  it  strikes  the  uni- 
versal key.  Even  when  it  speaks  to  present  conditions,  it  utters 
truths  of  dateless  significance  and  value.  The  greatest  of  the 
prophets  apparently  were  conscious  of  being  called  to  a  universal 
ministry.  When  they  summoned  heaven  and  earth  as  witnesses, 
they  seemed  to  claim  for  their  message  a  world-wide  application. 
When,  as  with  a  voice  of  thunder,  they  denounced  approaching 
doom  upon  guilty  nations,  they  seemed  to  feel  that  the  universal 
moral  sense  would  ratify  the  judgment.  When  they  voiced  the 
hope  that  was  in  them — hope  for  Israel  and  for  the  world — they 
expressed  it  in  language  so  lofty  and  with  a  conviction  so  com- 
pelling that  subsequent  ages  have  been  content  to  accept  their 
words  as  expressive  of  their  own  highest  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions. 

Secondly,  the  experience  of  Israel  was  representative  in  its 
consciousness  of  sin.  Sin  as  a  fact  of  consciousness  appears 
nowhere  so  vividly  in  the  ancient  world  as  in  the  experience  of 
the  Hebrew  people.  This  was  due  to  their  tuition  under  the 
law.  But  Hebrew  law  as  a  code  of  ethical  requirements  brought 
to  light  only  the  sins  which  mankind  in  general  commit:  offences 
against  justice,  purity  and  love.  There  would  have  been  no 
variance  between   Greek  philosopher  and  Hebrew  prophet  in 


88  MAN   AND  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE 

their  estimates  of  moral  conduct,  if  both  had  drawn  their  knowl- 
edge of  ethical  principles  from  the  same  source.  Despite  the 
disadvantage  under  which  the  pagan  conscience  labored,  its 
sense  of  sin  was  often  remarkably  clear.  The  difference  between 
Hebrew  and  non-Hebrew  at  this  point  was  chiefly  this:  The 
former  saw  deeper  into  the  meaning  of  sin;  he  had  a  clearer 
conception  of  it  as  a  moral  barrier  between  himself  and  God; 
he  strove  more  steadily  and  earnestly  to  remove  the  barrier;  and 
if  at  times  he  mistook  ritual  for  righteousness,  he  found  the  very 
law  in  which  he  trusted  to  be  at  last  a  "schoolmaster  to  bring 
him  to  Christ."  He  learned  that  the  divine  election  was  an 
election  of  grace  and  that  there  was  no  difference  between  Israel 
and  the  rest  of  mankind  in  point  of  merit,  but  only  in  priority 
of  experience  of  salvation.  What  he  learned  of  the  "plague  of 
his  own  heart"  the  Gentile  will  learn  too;  and,  making  due 
allowance  for  variety  in  the  divine  propaedeutic,  both  will 
learn  in  essentially  the  same  way  how  the  plague-spot  may  be 
healed. 

Thirdly,  Israel  was  representative  in  its  experience  of  suffering. 
From  the  beginning  men  had  known  what  suffering  was.  Suf- 
fering as  punitive,  the  pagan  mind  could  understand,  but  suffer- 
ing as  cleansing  and  redemptive  was  not  in  all  its  thoughts. 
Much  of  the  world's  sorrow  and  suffering  had  without  doubt 
been  vicarious,  but  the  principle  of  vicarious  suffering  waited  for 
elucidation  in  the  light  of  Hebrew  experience.  It  was  not  the 
quantity  of  suffering  which  "the  servant  of  Yahweh"  endured 
that  gave  it  its  peculiar  character;  rather  it  was  the  perception 
of  its  quality  that  gave  pathos  and  pungency  to  the  prophet's 
description  of  it.  It  was  suffering  for  a  beneficent  purpose.  It 
held  in  its  bosom  the  secret  of  salvation.  It  foreshadowed  the 
crucifixion.  It  showed  that  suffering  endured  in  patient  love, 
though  in  itself  a  thorn,  will  bear  fruit  to  eternal  life  in  the  hearts 
of  its  beneficiaries.  The  principle  of  vicarious  suffering  has 
vital  significance  for  all  mankind.  The  Hebrews  learned  it  and 
applied  it  in  their  own  experiences  in  advance  of  their  fellows. 
The  cross  of  Jesus  is  its  supreme  example. 

Thus  far  we  have  dealt  with  the  national  features  of  the  Mes- 
sianic ideal.  Israel,  as  the  Messianic  nation,  lived  its  unique  life 
not  for  itself  alone.     It  sounded  the  depths  of  the  moral  life  and 


MAN  AND  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE  89 

rose  to  the  heights  of  spiritual  exaltation  in  order  that  the  whole 
world  might  attain  spiritual  insight  and  enter  upon  its  divine 
inheritance.  And  in  large  part  the  Hebrews  directly  influenced 
other  nations  along  the  line  of  their  peculiar  experience.  Hebrew 
thought  and  Hebrew  faith  permeated  the  civilized  world  through 
the  diaspora.  The  proselytes  of  the  gate  were  frequently  among 
the  choicest  spirits  of  the  time. 

But  it  was  not  the  divine  intention  that  the  world  should  receive 
its  spiritual  education  wholly  at  the  hands  of  the  Hebrews  as  a 
people.  The  best  and  most  vital  things  could  be  known  only 
from  the  lips  of  him  in  whom  the  Hebrew  ideals  and  spirit  should 
at  length  reach  their  perfect  efflorescence.  Between  Messianic 
Israel  and  the  personal  Messiah  ran  various  connecting  lines  on 
which  were  threaded,  so  to  speak,  various  Messianic  individuals 
— prophets,  priests  and  sages,  royal  personages  and  men  gifted 
in  song. 


The  Messianic  ideal  which  was  latent  in  the  nation's  organic 
being  could  be  expressed  in  its  variety  only  through  individuals. 
For  the  prophetic  ideal  "men  of  spirit"  were  needed,  and  for 
the  kingly,  "men  of  valor."  At  length  the  individuals  stood  as 
the  concrete  realization  of  the  ideal,  but  even  so  no  single  indi- 
vidual realized  it  in  its  fullness,  but  only  in  part.  Moreover, 
prophet,  priest  and  king,  even  at  their  best,  were  never  con- 
sidered apart  from  the  nation.  As  they  derived  their  position  and 
their  meaning  from  the  organism,  so  they  reflected  back  upon 
the  organism  the  honor  and  prestige  which  they  severally  ac- 
quired through  their  personal  worth  and  achievements.  Thus 
nation  and  individual  co-operated  to  produce  the  image  of  per- 
fected humanity  in  which  the  general  and  the  particular  each 
found  its  place. 

Just  as  the  national  experience  revealed  generic  relationships, 
so  each  Messianic  individual  embodied  some  essentially  human 
trait  which  every  man  ideally  considered  should  possess. 

The  principal  emphasis  was  laid  upon  the  royal  function. 
There  was  a  reason  for  this.  While  prophecy  is  the  living  voice 
that  speaks  for  the  conscience  of  mankind,  and  priesthood  that 
which  promotes  the  culture  of  religion  on  its  aesthetic  or  its  moral 


90  MAN  AND  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE 

side,  kingship  is  the  embodiment  of  the  human  will;  not  the 
lawless  self-will  of  the  natural  man,  but  the  will  as  enlightened 
by  divine  truth  and  swayed  by  divine  power  that  persuades  but 
does  not  compel.  The  king  must  be  the  first  subject  of  the 
realm.  He  must  enforce  the  law  and  be  himself  a  pattern  of 
righteousness.  Saul  was  rejected  because  he  had  not  learned 
to  obey.  David  was  a  man  after  God's  heart  because  he  recog- 
nized that  he  was  but  the  representative  of  Yahweh  on  the  one 
hand  and  of  the  nation  on  the  other.  That  David  did  not  always 
live  up  to  this  high  ideal  was  painfully  evident,  but  nothing  more 
signally  proved  the  reality  and  imperativeness  of  the  ideal  than 
the  judgment  that  fell  upon  David's  house.  Chastisement,  de- 
feat, or  impending  dethronement  warned  the  occupants  of  the 
throne  against  placing  too  low  an  estimate  upon  the  divine 
requirement. 

There  was  danger  in  making  the  royal  type  too  prominent. 
The  current  expectation  regarding  the  Messianic  king  was  a 
constant  embarrassment  to  Jesus.  More  than  once  he  refused 
the  proffered  crown,  knowing  that  for  him  the  royal  idea  in- 
cluded elements  of  which  the  people  had  no  conception.  Long 
ago  prophecy  had  presented  two  ideals  which  tended  greatly 
to  shade  the  splendor  of  the  royal  type,  viz.:  the  portrait  of 
the  ideal  man  and  that  of  the  patient  sufferer.  Both  rest  on 
something  more  fundamental  than  royalty,  something  which  be- 
longs to  man  as  man,  and  which  glorifies  the  common  man  as 
truly  as  it  does  the  king.  Either  would  serve  as  model  for  any 
of  the  sons  of  men. 

Jesus  betrayed  his  unerring  consciousness  of  his  Messianic 
vocation  when  he  perceived  that  all  these  various  elements  were 
necessary  to  the  true  Messiah  and  in  his  matchless  way  com- 
bined them  in  his  own  strong  and  simple  personality.  The  in- 
dividualizing of  the  Messianic  function  was  unified  and  perfected 
in  his  person.  He  was  in  reality  all  that  his  forerunners  were  in 
type.  He  exhibited  in  fullness  what  they  performed  in  part. 
In  him  all  the  Messianic  forecasts  were  personalized  and  made 
eternally  sure.     Henceforth  we  look  not  for  another. 


MAN  AND  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE  91 


VI 

The  perfection  of  Jesus'  character  lies  in  its  absolute  human- 
ness.  That  he  lived  a  normal  human  life;  that  he  was  tempted 
in  all  points  like  as  we  are;  that  he  learned  obedience  by  the 
things  which  he  suffered,  we  gather  from  the  story  of  his  earthly 
career.  That  he  lived  his  life  without  sin  is  also  of  record,  and 
the  burden  of  disproof  is  upon  him  who  would  show  the  record 
false. 

We  are  fain  to  believe  that  Jesus  chose  the  title  "Son  of  Man" 
because  of  its  simple  human  connotation.  He  was  very  man 
of  very  man.  In  him  Israel  flowered  and  humanity  came  to 
its  own.  Generic  humanity  took  fresh  root  in  him.  He  epit- 
omized in  himself  the  race  as  it  was  destined  to  become. 

In  his  teaching  he  worked  constructively  on  the  human  plane. 
He  magnified  the  worth  of  the  individual  man.  He  held  the 
soul,  the  self,  which  is  the  core  of  personality,  to  be  of  more  value 
than  the  whole  material  world.  He  was  the  friend  of  sinners, 
and  in  his  intercourse  with  the  lowest  we  can  see  what  must  have 
been  his  constant  feeling  as  he  moved  among  the  throng  that 
pressed  him.  Rank,  wealth  and  culture,  and  the  privileges  of 
birth  were  as  nothing  in  his  eyes  compared  with  the  simple  fact 
that  men  and  women  were  born  of  the  earth-mother  and  had 
God  for  their  father.  Everj^here  he  felt  the  human  touch,  and 
it  drew  from  him  the  virtue  of  his  unspent  sympathy.  Whether 
to  Zacchseus  the  extortioner  or  to  the  woman  taken  in  adultery, 
his  appeal  was  to  the  best  that  was  in  humanity  and  the  appeal 
was  always  made  in  faith. 

The  story  of  the  temptation  throws  a  flash  of  strong  light  upon 
Jesus'  habits  of  thought.  We  are  told  that  the  devil  showed  him 
all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them.  The  vision 
itself  probably  was  not  new  to  Jesus.  The  world  as  a  whole  had 
been  present  to  his  mind  before.  He  repelled  the  suggestion  of 
Satan,  but  he  retained  the  panoramic  vision.  Out  of  his  deep 
brooding  over  it  came  his  "Weltanschauung,"  His  eye  was  fixed 
upon  the  total  of  humanity  as  the  sphere  of  God's  present  and 
future  working.  He  expected  that  when  he  should  be  lifted  up 
from  the  earth,  he  would  draw  all  men  unto  himself.     His  out- 


92  MAN  AND  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

look  and  his  hope,  and  his  invincible  purpose,  were  universal, 
racial. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  moving  among  things  essentially- 
human.  And,  not  only  his  death,  but  his  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion,— were  they  not  as  truly  stages  in  his  human  career  as  were 
his  birth,  his  circumcision  and  baptism  ?  Was  he  not  exalted  to 
the  right  hand  of  God  because  of  what  he  had  done  as  man  when 
he  lived  his  life  in  the  flesh?  Was  it  not  as  the  ideal  man  that 
the  divine  benediction  was  bestowed  on  him — "This  is  my  be- 
loved Son  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased  "  ?  And  when  we  think  of 
Jesus  as  divine,  is  it  not  because  his  divinity  is  the  irrefragable 
conclusion  of  the  argument  which  his  total  life  presents? 

Our  vision  still  is  of  man;  man  on  the  way  to  a  predestined 
salvation.  We  have  seen  humanity  as  a  whole  rising  through 
Israel  to  a  sense  of  its  worth  in  the  sight  of  God.  We  have  seen 
it  come  to  maturity  in  Jesus  in  whom  the  divine  Word  was  made 
flesh.  We  have  seen  it  made  perfect  through  suffering  and  ex- 
alted to  a  place  within  the  Godhead.  The  task  of  Jesus  which  he 
began  on  earth  he  completes  from  his  theanthropic  throne.  He 
sends  forth  his  Spirit,  which  is  the  Spirit  of  sonship,  to  reproduce 
in  all  the  sons  of  men  a  character  like  his  own,  thus  making  them 
partakers  of  the  divine  nature.  We  see  not  yet  what  man  shall 
be;  but  we  hear  the  footfalls  of  an  unnumbered  host,  and  catch 
the  strains  of  an  ascending  song — the  processional  of  redeemed 
humanity. 

San  Anselmo,  California, 
July,  1910. 


IX 

NOTES  ON  TWO  PASSAGES  IN  THE   OLD 
TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHA 

By  a.  V.  Williams  Jackson 

It  may  be  somewhat  hazardous  for  a  non-speciahst  in  Biblical 
and  Semitic  subjects  to  enter  among  the  ranks  of  contributors 
to  this  volume,  but  I  remember  the  kindness  with  which  Dr. 
Briggs,  the  first  president  of  our  little  Oriental  Club  in  New 
York,  used  to  call  upon  me,  as  the  only  Indo-Iranian  member, 
to  present  something  after  the  papers  of  the  evening  were  read, 
and  how  graciously  the  Biblical  colleagues  received  such  com- 
munications, though  not  directly  in  their  line.  For  that  reason 
I  count  it  a  privilege  and  a  pleasure  to  add  the  accompanying 
notes  from  the  field  of  Iranian  studies  in  connection  with  two 
passages  in  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  as  a  memento  of 
kindness  on  the  part  of  a  friend  and  as  a  mark  of  regard  for  the 
scholar  whom  I  have  long  admired. 

1.  A  Note  on  Ragau  {Avestan  Ragha,  Old  Persian  Raga)  in 

Judith  V"''^ 

Owing  to  my  interest  in  Zoroaster  I  have  always  felt  an  attrac- 
tion for  the  history  of  ancient  Ragha,  the  modern  Rai,  whose 
ruins  lie  about  five  miles  south  of  Teheran.  Ragha  is  supposed 
by  tradition  to  have  been  the  home  of  Zoroaster's  mother,  and 
appears  as  'Rages'  or  'Ragau'  in  Tobit  and  Judith.*     On  each 

*  A  description  of  the  ruins  of  Ragha  and  a  sketch  of  its  history,  by  the 
present  writer,  will  be  found  in  Persia  Past  and  Present,  pp.  428-441,  New 
York,  1906,  and  in  the  Spiegel  Memorial  Volume,  pp.  237-245,  Bombay,  1908. 
For  the  tradition  about  Zoroaster's  mother  see  Zoroaster,  the  Prophet  of  Ancient 
Iran,  pp.  17,  192,  204,  New  York,  1899. 

93 


94  NOTES  ON  THE   APOCRYPHA 

of  the  three  visits  which  I  paid  to  Persia  in  the  years  1903,  1907, 
and  1910,  I  was  particularly  struck  by  the  aptness  of  a  local 
allusion  in  Judith  to  the  plain  and  mountains  about  Rai,  what- 
ever may  be  the  inaccuracy  of  other  allusions  in  this  non-canonical 
work. 

The  well  known  passage  (Judith,  V'^^)  describes  how  Nebu- 
chadnezzar marched  against  *(1)  Arphaxad,  who  reigned  over 
the  Medes  in  Ecbatana,  .  .  .  (5)  and  made  war  with  King 
Arphaxad  in  the  great  plain:  this  plain  is  in  the 
borders  of  Ragau,  (13)  and  he  set  the  battle  in  array 
with  his  host  against  King  Arphaxad  in  the  seventeenth  year, 
and  he  prevailed  in  his  battle  and  turned  to  flight  all  the  host 
of  Arphaxad,  and  all  his  horse,  and  all  his  chariots;  (14)  and 
he  became  master  of  his  cities,  and  he  came  even  unto  Ecbatana, 
and  took  the  towers,  and  spoiled  the  streets  thereof,  and  turned 
the  beauty  thereof  into  shame.  (15)  And  he  took  Ar- 
phaxad in  the  mountains  of  Ragau,  and  smote 
him  through  with  his  darts,  and  destroyed  him  utterly,  unto 
this  day.' 

I  shall  not  enter  here  into  the  question  of  the  historical  or 
pseudo-historical  identity  of  Arphaxad,*  but  I  wish  to  emphasize 
the  appropriateness  of  the  references  to  the  plain  and  the  moun- 
tains in  connection  with  Ragha,  a  matter  that  might  be  in- 
cluded with  the  local  names  regarding  which  Schiirer  remarks 
that  'der  Verfasser  seine  Erzahlung  nicht  geographisch  in  die 
Luft  gebaut  haben  wird.'  f  In  whatever  direction  one  approaches 
Rai  (Ragau,  Rages),  whether  from  the  south  or  from  the  north, 
or  when  journeying  to  and  from  Khurasan,  one  is  struck  by  the 
impression  of  plain  and  mountain  alike.  The  photographs 
which  are  here  reproduced  will  bring  out  that  point  more  clearly; 
and,  as  I  have  noted  elsewhere,!  the  mountains  in  question  may 
either  be  a  part  of  the  Alburz  range,  as  is  generally  thought,  or 

*  See  Cheyne,  'Arphaxad  2/  in  Encycl.  Bib.  1.  319,  and  W.  Max  MuUer's 
'Arphaxad,'  in  Jewish  Encycl.  2.  137  and  Prdsek,  Gesch.  der  Meder  und  Perser, 
2.  35,  n.  1.  Gotha,  1910;  and  compare,  O.  Wolff,  Das  Buck  Judith,  pp.  51-56, 
Leipzig,  1861,  and  especially  Andre,  Les  Apocryphes  de  I'Ancien  Testament, 
pp.  153-154,  Florence,  1903. 

t  Quoted  from  Lohr  in  Kautzsch's  Apokryphen  und  Pseudepigraphen,  p.  148, 
Freiburg  i.  B.,  1898. 

X  See  Spiegel  Memorial  Volume,  p.  239. 


NOTES   ON   THE    APOCRYPHA  95 

they  may  rather  be  the  spurs  which  form  a  minor  ridge  curving 
around  ancient  Ragha  and  giving  an  elevated  effect,  which  the 
photographs  show. 

By  way  of  supplement  it  may  be  added  that  'the  plain  of  Rai' 
is  referred  to,  for  example,  by  the  Persian  writer  Mustufi;  * 
while  Ibn  Haukal  speaks  of  '  the  mountains  of  Rai,'  f  Yakut 
alludes  to  'the  bare  and  arid  mountain'  which  dominates  it,  and 
Strabo  speaks  in  a  similar  manner  of  the  district  as  mountainous.  J 
It  is  worth  observing  that  the  old  Latin  (Itala)  versions  of  Tobit 
state  that  '  Rages  is  built  on  the  mountain,  but  Agbatana  in  the 
plain,*  and  that  they  are  'two  days'  journey'  apart,  see  Neu- 
bauer,  Book  of  Tobit,  pp.  34,  53,  75.  Knowing  the  topography 
of  Rages  makes  the  apocryphal  narrative  seem  at  least  more 
vivid. 

2.  An  Iranian  Parallel  to  the  Story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon 

In  the  apocryphal  story  of  'Bel  and  the  Dragon'  a  touch  of 
Persian  color,  beside  the  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  tinges,  is  given 
by  the  references  to  Astyages  and  Cyrus,  in  the  favor  of  which 
latter  monarch  the  prophet  Daniel  is  represented  as  standing. 
The  sequel  of  the  discovery  of  the  fraud  of  the  Babylonian  '  idol 
called  Bel,'  and  its  overthrow  (vv,  ^"^),  is  furnished  by  the 
fabulous  tale  of  the  dragon  destroyed  by  Daniel  through  an  arti- 
fice. The  passage  is  familiar,  but  I  repeat  it  for  convenience  in 
the  Revised  Version  (vv.  ^^'"). 

(23)  '  In  that  same  place  [as  the  idol]  there  was  a  great  dragon, 
which  they  of  Babylon  worshipped.  (24)  And  the  king  said 
unto  Daniel,  "  Wilt  thou  also  say  that  this  is  of  brass  ?  lo,  he  liveth, 
and  eateth,  and  drinketh;  thou  canst  not  say  that  he  is  no  living 
god;  therefore  worship  him."  (25)  Then  said  Daniel,  "I  will 
worship  the  Lord  my  God:  for  he  is  a  living  God.  (26)  But 
give  me  leave,  O  king,  and  I  shall  slay  this  dragon  without 
sword  or  staff."     The  king  said,  "I  give  thee  leave."     Then 

*  For  Mustufi,  see  Le  Strange,  Lands  of  the  Eastern  Caliphate,  p.  218,  Cam- 
bridge, 1905. 

t  Ibn  Haukal,  ed.  De  Goeje,  2.  249,  1.  2,  and  2.  289,  1.  9;  cf.  also  Ouseley, 
The  Oriental  Geography  of  Ihn  Haukal,  London,  1800. 

I  For  Yakut,  see  tr.  Barbier  de  Maynard,  Diet.  Geog.  de  la  Perse,  p.  274, 
Paris,  1861,  and  cf.  Strabo,  Geog.  11.  13.  7,  Casaub.,  p.  524. 


96  NOTES   ON   THE    APOCRYPHA 

Daniel  took  pitch,  and  fat,  and  hair,  and  did  seethe  them  to- 
gether, and  made  lumps  thereof:  this  he  put  in  the  dragon's 
mouth,  so  the  dragon  did  eat  and  burst  asunder.' 

The  Iranian  quasi-parallel,  to  which  I  would  call  attention,  is 
found  in  the  Pahlavi  work,  Kdrndmak-i  Artakhsher  Pdpdkdn,  a 
romantic  sketch  of  the  fortunes  of  the  first  Sasanian  king,  Arda- 
shir  Babagan  (224-241  a.  d.).  The  work  itself,  which  is  written 
in  Sasanian  Pahlavi  and  is  to  be  dated  about  600  a.  d.,  describes, 
among  other  things,  how  Ardashir  destroyed  the  dragon  of 
'Haftan  Bukht,  the  Lord  of  the  Worm  (Kirm),'  or  'ruler  of 
Kirman,'  by  an  artful  device. 

Ardashir,  after  failing  in  an  attempt  to  storm  the  fortress  of 
the  dragon  and  its  lord,  is  advised  by  two  devoted  followers  to 
resort  to  a  clever  piece  of  strategy  in  order  to  accomplish  the 
destruction  of  the  monster.  I  translate  the  passage  from  the 
Pahlavi,  having  at  hand  three  editions  of  the  text  with  versions, 
and  also  a  German  rendering.*  The  counsel  of  Ardashir's 
confederates  is  as  follows: 

'When  the  time  comes  for  the  dragon  to  devour  its  food,  ar- 
range so  as  to  have  molten  brass  ready  to  pour  into  the  dragon's 
jaws  {rui  i  vltakhtak  -pa  zafar  I  an  druj  rezishn).  That  fiend  in 
spiritual  form  can  be  slain  through  worship  and  prayer  to  God, 
and  in  its  corporeal  shape  that  fiend  can  be  slain  by  molten  brass.' 

Accordingly,  Ardashir,  accompanied  by  the  two  trusty  com- 
rades, goes  in  disguise  to  the  castle  of  the  dragon,  with  gifts  in 
his  hands  as  an  conciliatory  offering,  and  gains  entrance  on  the 
plea  that  he  desires  to  worship  and  serve  the  monster. 

'The  idol-worshippers  admitted  Artakhsher  with  his  two 
manly  men,  and  gave  them  a  place  in  the  abode  of  the  dragon. 
For  three  days  Artakhsher  made  show  of  worship  and  devotion 
to  the  dragon  in  this  manner,  and  presented  dirhams  and  dinars 
and  clothes  to  the  worshippers,  and  so  deported  himself  that  all 
who  were  in  the  fortress  admired  and  blessed  him.  Thereupon 
Artakhsher  said :   "  It  would  thus  seem  good  if  I  might  give  the 

*  See  Noldeke,  Geschichte  des  ArtacKsir  i  Pdpdkdn,  in  Bezzenberger's  Beitr. 
zur  Kunde  der  idg.  Spr.,  4.  55-56,  Gottingen,  1878;  Darab  Dastur  Peshotan 
Sanjana,  The  Kdrndme  I  Artakh-shlr  i  Pdpdkdn,  33,  36,  Bombay,  1896; 
Kaikobad  Adarbad  Dastur  Nosherwan,  Kdrndmak,  pp.  13-14,  Bombay, 
1896;   Edalji  Kersaspji  Antia,  Karnamak,  pp.  29-31,  Bombay,  1900. 


NOTES   ON    THE    APOCRYPHA  97 

dragon  food  for  three  days."  The  worshippers  and  those  in 
command  of  affairs  consented  unanimously.*  .  .  .  On  the  day 
appointed,  he  himself  had  molten  brass  ready,  while  [his  com- 
panions] Burjak  and  Burj-artaro  occupied  themselves  in  worship 
and  prayer  to  God.  When  eating  time  arrived,  the  dragon, 
according  to  his  daily  habit,  made  a  roar.  Artakhsher  had  pre- 
viously to  this,  at  breakfast,  made  the  idol-worshippers  and 
those  in  command  of  affairs  drunk  and  unconscious.  He  him- 
self went  with  his  companions  into  the  presence  of  the  dragon 
and  carried  into  the  presence  of  the  dragon  the  blood  of  bulls 
and  sheep,  just  as  it  received  every  day.  As  soon  as  the  dragon 
opened  its  jaws  in  order  to  devour  the  blood,  Artakhsher  poured 
the  molten  brass  into  its  jaws;  and  when  the  brass  came  into  its 
body,  the  dragon  burst  in  twain,  and  such  a  roar  came  from  it 
that  all  the  men  in  the  fortress  came  to  the  spot,  and  confusion 
prevailed  in  the  fortress.  Whereupon  Artakhsher  laid  his  hand 
on  his  sword  and  shield,  and  wrought  mighty  havoc  and  slaugh- 
ter throughout  the  fortress.' 

The  date  of  this  prose  romance,  as  already  stated,  appears  to 
be  about  600  a.  d.,  and  the  same  story  is  told  in  verse  with  some 
variations  and  added  touches  by  the  Persian  epic  poet  Firdusi, 
1000  A.  D.,  when  describing  the  events  of  Ardashir's  reign.  This 
latter  version  is  easily  accessible  in  a  French  and  an  Italian 
translation,  if  any  one  wishes  to  examine  the  question  further.f 
In  any  event  the  quasi-parallel  of  the  Pahlavi  story  to  the  Apoc- 
rypha seems  worth  recording,  even  without  going  into  the 
question  of  possible  influence  from  the  Biblical  side  or  through 
the  common  stock  of  dragon  myths,  such  as  Tiamat,  Vritra, 
Python,  Hydra,  the  St.  George  legend,  or  the  Siegfried  saga. 

Columbia  University, 
September  29,  1910. 

*  I  omit  here  a  brief  paragraph  that  explains  how  Ardashir  had  arranged  a 
signal  which  his  soldiers  outside  the  fortress  should  recognize  as  soon  as  he 
killed  the  dragon. 

t  See  Mohl,  Le  Livre  des  Rois,  5.  259-262,  Paris,  1877;  Pizzi,  II  Libro  dei 
Re,  6.  51  Turin,  1888. 


X 

THE   DEFINITION   OF   THE    JEWISH   CANON   AND 
THE  REPUDIATION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SCRIPTURES 

By  George  F.  Moore 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  lessons  from  the  Penta- 
teuch were  read  in  the  synagogue  on  the  Sabbath,  the  book  being 
for  this  purpose  divided  in  such  a  way  that  it  was  read  through 
in  course  in  three  years.  This  first  lesson  was  followed  by  a 
second,  selected  from  the  Prophets,  under  which  name  the  books 
of  Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings  are  included.  These 
scriptures  were  given  by  God;  their  authors  were  divinely  in- 
spired, and  divine  authority  resided  in  their  every  word. 

Besides  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  there  were  several  books 
to  which  the  same  character  was  ascribed:  the  Psalms — whose 
author,  David,  was,  indeed,  a  prophet — Job,  the  Proverbs  of 
Solomon,  Ecclesiastes,  the  Song  of  Songs,  Esther,  Daniel,  and 
others.  These  books,  for  which  no  specific  name  existed,  were 
not  read  in  the  synagogue;  it  was  not  necessary,  therefore,  that 
the  synagogue  should  possess  a  complete  collection  of  them,  and 
perhaps  few  private  scholars  had  copies  of  them  all.  What 
books  belonged  to  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  every  one  knew; 
that  was  determined  by  the  prescription  of  immemorial  liturgical 
use  and  by  long-standing  methods  of  study  in  the  schools. 
What  books  were  comprised  in  the  third  class,  "  the  scriptures," 
was  not  so  determined.  In  regard  to  most  of  them  there  was, 
indeed,  unanimous  agreement;  but  others  were  not  universally 
accepted:  Ecclesiastes,  the  Song  of  Songs,  and  Esther,  in  par- 
ticular were  antilegomena;  and  on  the  other  hand  some  reckoned 
Sirach  among  the  inspired  books.  The  question  had,  however, 
no  great  practical  importance,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  any  at- 
tempt was  made  to  settle  it  by  drawing  up  a  list  of  the  '  scriptures.' 

99 


100  THE   JEWISH   CANON 

In  the  Christian  church  it  was  not  the  differences  about  anti- 
legomena,  such  as  the  smaller  Catholic  Epistles  and  the  Apoc- 
alypse, that  compelled  a  definition  of  the  canon  of  the  New- 
Testament,  but  the  rise  of  heresies,  particularly  gnostic,  whose 
writings,  pretending  to  the  authority  of  scripture,  disseminated 
doctrines  at  war  with  catholic  tradition  and  in  the  eyes  of  the 
catholic  leaders  subversive  of  the  foundations  of  religion — writ- 
ings doubly  seductive  because  they  professed  to  present  the  per- 
fection of  Christianity.  The  orthodox  bishops  were  constrained, 
therefore,  not  only  to  unmask  these  insidious  errors,  but  to  pub- 
lish for  the  guidance  of  the  faithful  lists  of  the  books  which  the 
Church  received  as  its  inspired  Scriptures,  and  to  denounce  as 
spurious  the  writings  of  the  heretics.* 

The  so-called  Muratorian  canon  is  peculiarly  instructive  here, 
not  only  because  it  is  the  oldest  list  of  this  kind  which  has  come 
down  to  us,t  but  because  the  specification  of  rejected  writings 
shews  clearly  what  were  the  heresies  which  gave  its  author  the 
greatest  concern.  Thus,  at  the  end  of  the  enumeration  of  the 
Pauline  Epistles  we  read:  J  Fertur  etiam  ad  Laudecenses  alia 
ad  Alexandrinos  Pauli  nomine  finctae  ad  heresim  Marcionis,  et 
alia  plura,  quae  in  catholicam  ecclesiam  recipi  non  potest;  fel 
enim  cum  melle  misceri  non  congruit.  Epistola  sane  ludae  et 
superscriptio  lohannis  duas  in  catholica  habentur,  et  Sapientia 
ab  amicis  Salomonis  in  honorem  ipsius  scripta.  Apocalypses 
etiam  lohannis  et  Petri  tantum  recipimus,  quam  quidam  ex 
nostris  legi  in  ecclesia  nolunt.  Pastorem  vero  nuperrime  tem- 
poribus  nostris  in  urbe  Roma  Herma  conscripsit,  sedente  cathedra 
urbis  Romae  ecclesiae  Pio  episcopo  fratre  eius,  et  ideo  legi  eum 
quidem  oportet,  se  publicare  vero  in  ecclesia  populo  neque  inter 
prophetas  completum  numero  neque  inter  apostolos  in  finem 
temporum  potest.  Arsinoi  autem  seu  Valentini,  vel  Mitiadis  [?] 
nihil  in  totum  recipimus.  Qui  etiam  novum  Psalmorum  librum 
Marcioni  conscripserunt  una  cum  Basilide,  Assianum  cata- 
phrygum  constitutorem.  .  .  . 

The  text  is  in  more  than  one  point  obscure,  but  the  names  of 

*  This  motive  is  set  forth  at  some  length  by  Athanasius  at  the  beginning  of 
the  39th  Festal  Epistle  (a.d.  367). 

t  Drawn  up  probably  in  Rome  near  the  close  of  the  second  century. 

J  The  text  is  based  on  Preuschen,  Analecta  (1893),  p.  129  ff.,  with  correc- 
tion of  manifest  orthographical  errors  and  the  introduction  of  the  punctuation. 


THE  JEWISH  CANON  101 

Marcion,  of  Valentinus  and  Basilides,  and  of  the  founder  of  the 
cataphrygian  heresy,  suffice  to  render  the  situation  clear. 

Similarly  in  the  Jewish  church:  it  was  not  the  diversity  of 
opinion  in  the  schools  about  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Songs 
that  first  made  deliverances  about  the  'scriptures'  necessary,  but 
the  rise  of  the  Christian  heresy  and  the  circulation  of  Christian 
writings.  Older  than  any  catalogue  of  the  canonical  books 
which  has  been  preserved*  are  specific  decisions  that  certain 
books  are  not  inspired  scripture,  and  among  these  repudiated 
books  the  Gospels  stand  in  the  front  rank. 

The  earliest  deliverance  of  this  kind  is  in  the  Tosephta,t 
Jadaim,  2*^: 

"  The  Gospels  §  and  the  books  of  the  heretics  are  not  holy 
scripture;  ||  the  books  of  the  son  of  Sirach  and  all  books  that 
have  been  written  since  his  time  are  not  holy  scripture." 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  decision  in  Tos.  Sabbath,  13  (14)^. 
The  question  here  under  consideration  is:  What  things  may  be 
rescued  from  a  burning  building  on  the  Sabbath  ?  ^  The  gen- 
eral principle  is  that  holy  scriptures  (expressly  including  the 
hagiographa)  should  be  saved;**  but  "the  Gospels  and  the  books 
of  the  heretics  may  not  be  saved" — they  are  not  holy  scriptures. 
The  passage  is  so  important  that  it  must  be  quoted  entire. 

mil  mn^TKn  ns  Xt  y^ "p  ^""r:  nais  ''^•'^:n  •'DV  ^21  .  cn\m-irTST 
*»T^  •Sii"'  cs^w^  "'•'ii  ns  naps  psiD  •'in  nt:s    .-is'^:'-  ns  cjir^i 

*  The  oldest  (before  200  a.d.)  is  a  Baraitha  in  Baba  Bathra,  14^,  on  the 
proper  order  of  the  Prophets  and  the  Hagiographa. 
t  Ed.  Zuckermandel,  Pasewalk,  1881. 

I  Ed.  r^iNC-jr:. 

§  That  gilion  here  and  in  the  following  quotations  is  eiayyfKiov  will  be 
proved  below. 

II  Literally,  "do  not  make  the  hands  unclean  ";  the  principle  being,  "All 
holy  scriptures  make  the  hands  unclean."     See  below,  p.  119. 

^  It  being  under  ordinary  circumstances  a  breach  of  the  Sabbath  to  carry 
anything  out  of  a  building  on  that  day;  Tos.  Sabbath,  1,  Mishna  Sabbath,  1. 

**  M.  Sabbath  16'. 

tt  +  P  Ed. 

it  So  Jer.  Sabb.  IG'  (ed.  Venet.  f.  IS'').  Zuckermandel,  with  cod.  Erfurt., 
NiiP:  other  mss.  and  edd.  of  the  Tosephta,  Bab.  Sabb.  116*,  Sifre,  Num. 
§  16  (on  5=^)  ■i-'V;  Tanchuma,  Buber,  Korah,  App.  1,  -'^V. 


^     Of   THC 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


102  THE   JEWISH   CANON 

]nsi3i  tms  jn-'^D  j^s  nnr  rrnny  •'imyt:'  in'^nn^  d:3j  '':i\si  nnr 
n^in  nnxi  nms  mnsn  nn-'^yi  in  j^sidi  im«  jn-'SD  ibbr^  ia 
p  m^tt'  niiyy^  dn  noi  ^xdd''  ••an  nD«    .-[jinDT  noiy  nnTam 

:jna«Dn  ini  b^^  K^i  d-'Dh  '':aD  «^i  m^san  '':dd 

"The  Gospels  and  the  books  of  heretics  are  not  to  be  rescued, 
but  allowed  to  burn  where  they  are,  names  of  God  and  all.* 
Rabbi  Jose  the  Galilean  says :  f  On  a  week  day  one  should  tear 
out  the  names  of  God  and  put  them  away  in  safe  keeping,  and 
burn  the  rest.  Rabbi  Tarphon  said:  May  I  lose  my  children,! 
but  if  these  books  came  into  my  hands,  I  would  burn  them,  names 
of  God  and  all !  If  a  pursuer  were  after  me,  I  would  take  refuge 
in  a  heathen  temple  and  not  in  their  conventicles;  for  the  heathen 
deny  God  without  knowing  him,  but  these  know  him  and  yet 
deny  him.  Of  them  the  scripture  says:  "Behind  the  door  and 
the  door  post  thou  hast  set  up  thy  memorial."  §  Rabbi  Ishmael 
said:  ||  If,  to  make  peace  between  a  man  and  his  wife,  God  com- 
manded, 'Let  my  name,  which  is  written  in  holiness,  be  wiped 
off  into  the  water,'  how  much  more  should  the  books  of  the 
heretics,  who  bring  enmity  and  jealousy  and  strife  between  Israel 
and  their  father  in  heaven,  be  put  out  of  the  way,  names  of  God 
and  all.  Of  them  the  scripture  says:  "Do  not  I  hate  them,  O 
Lord,  that  hate  thee?  Do  not  I  loathe  them  that  oppose  thee? 
I  hate  them  with  perfect  hatred;  I  count  them  my  enemies."^ 
And  as  they  are  not  to  be  saved  from  a  fire,  so  they  are  not  to  be 

*  A  pious  man  might  scruple  to  allow  the  divine  names  to  be  destroyed, 
even  in  a  context  that  richly  merited  destruction. — The  same  rule  applies  to 
written  prayers  and  to  amulets:  "though  they  may  contain  the  letters  of  the 
divine  name  and  many  sentences  of  the  law,"  they  are  to  be  left  to  burn. 
Tos.  Sabb.  13*;  Jer.  Sabb.  16^;   Sabb.  61b,  115b. 

t  In  Sifrfe,  Num.  §  16,  the  view  here  attributed  to  Jose  is  maintained  by 
Ishmael;  Akiba  says,  One  should  burn  the  whole  of  it,  because  it  was  not 
written  in  holiness. 

t  A  favorite  oath  of  Tarphon;    see  e.  g.,  Tos.  Hagiga  3^*. 

S  Isa  57^. 

II  See  also  Sifrfe,  Num.  §  16.  If  Ps.  139*'  '•. 


THE   JEWISH   CANON  103 

saved  from  the  fall  of  a  building,  or  from  flood,  or  from  any 
other  destroying  agency." 

The  whole  passage  is  repeated — with  minor  variations  which 
do  not  affect  the  sense — in  Jer.  Sabbath  16*  *  and  in  the  Baby- 
lonian Talmud,  Sabbath  llG^.f  In  the  latter  the  question  is 
thereupon  raised  whether  the  books  of  "Be  Abidan"  fall  in 
the  category  of  heretical  writings  which  may  not  be  saved;  and 
further  (a  propos  of  Tarphon's  violent  words  about  the  conven- 
ticles of  heretics),  whether  it  is  proper  to  visit  the  "Be  Abidan'* 
and  the  "Be  Nizrephi."t  Rabbi  Abbahu,  to  whom  the  inquiry 
was  addressed,  was  not  certain;  precedents  are  quoted  on  both 
sides. 

After  this  digression  the  Babylonian  Talmud  resumes  the 
subject  of  the  Gospels.  In  the  current  editions,  since  that  of 
Basel  (1578-1581),  the  text  has  been  so  mutilated  by  the  censors 
that  neither  the  connection  nor  the  significance  of  the  passage  is 
recognizable.  The  subjoined  text  is  that  of  the  first  complete 
edition  of  the  Talmud,  published  at  Venice  by  Bomberg  in  1520. § 
The  most  important  variations  of  the  Munich  manuscript  (M) 
and  of  an  Oxford  manuscript  (O)  are  noted  after  Rabbinowicz, 
Dikduke  Sopherim. 

KD^«    .p^^j  ]^V  n**^  "-np  pnT*  '\^^b'':  ps  n^b  np  n^SD  ^t\ 
i<}r[n  '^\^n  ^sin  hi^^hti^  ^pm  n^nns  nry^x  ^nm  inn^m  m^ty 

K-ia  DipD^T  'i^  2\n3  n^^  noK  ^Th^  \r\b  nt:«  ^^tt^:  •'m  ^Dnj^  ^b 

pnn''  «nn3  sn-i.ai  snn  n^^  n-'nm  ']*i^^^:  pj;  nn''n^n\si  ntrisf 
py-r  n^D-'D^  n^b^^'^  yrh  nns  ^yh  snon  in^«  n^^  b^^v  ^i"  ino^ 
Ti^nx  nt^DT  sn^'-mK  ]»  nns^D^  ^b  ji^^^i  jiy  k:«  n-in  n-'n^i  p^^^:i 
«nn  mpDn  n-'a  2^nDi  ••n^nx  ^"H'^d-i  «n^ms  b'g  '•sdik^  '«^s 

*  In  his  edition  of  the  Midrash  Tanchuma,  Buber  inserts  the  passage — which 
is  not  found  in  the  common  recension — at  tke  end  of  the  Parasha  Korah,  from 
a  Roman  codex,  in  which,  as  Buber  shows,  it  is  derived  from  the  lost  Midrash 
Jelamedenu. 

t  Quoted  in  full  from  the  Babylonian  Talmud  in  Jalkut,  II,  §  488,  on  Isa.  57. 

X  What  these  assemblies  were  is  a  question  that  need  not  detain  us  here. 

§  From  a  copy  in  the  library  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
The  text  of  this  edition  is  reprinted  by  L.  Goldschmidt,  Der  Babylonische 
Talmud,  1897  sqq.,  with  variae  lediones  and  translation. 


104  THE   JEWISH   CANON 

I  +  ■'31     M    ^  +  ?3  PJ'ois'  M      *  +  f*''!'"!"'  '^''OP  '^^'^i  -'"■>"'  "'■'^2  ^J''"'  '^'^  •■'''"1  O 

*  rh-m      M     ^  >  M      ^  ^""^i  O 

^Nn^niNa   M    8 'nnnN  Nn^iiN  Modern  edd. — O  reads: '^sfm  ^^n'-niN  n'''?ajn''N 

9  f<'^i  Modern  edd. 

*"  The  three  preceding  words  >  M  and  earliest  edd. 

"Rabbi  Meir  called  it  'awen  gilion,  Rabbi  Johanan  called  it 
'awon  gilion.* 

Imma  Shalom,  the  wife  of  Rabbi  Eliezer  and  sister  of  Rabban 
Gamaliel,  had  in  her  neighborhood  a  certain  philosopher  f  who 
had  the  reputation  there  of  not  taking  bribes.  They  wished  to 
bring  him  into  ridicule,  so  she  brought  him  a  gold  lamp,  appeared 
before  him  and  said:  I  want  to  have  a  share  in  the  division  of 
the  patriarch's  estate. J  He  said  to  them,  Divide  it,  then! 
Rabban  Gamaliel  replied.  It  is  written  for  us  that  where  there 
is  a  son,  a  daughter  does  not  inherit.  §  The  judge  answered. 
From  the  time  when  you  lost  your  independence  the  law  of 
Moses  was  done  away,  and  the  gospel  (evayyeXtov^  was  given; 
and  therein  it  is  written,  'Son  and  daughter  shall  inherit  alike.* 
On  the  following  day,  Rabban  Gamaliel  brought  him  a  Libyan 
ass.  The  judge  said  to  them,  I  have  looked  further  down  to 
the  end  of  the  Gospel,  and  there  it  is  written,  '  I,  Gospel,  did  not 
come  to  take  away  from  the  law  of  Moses,  but  to  add  to  the  law 
of  Moses  I  came';  ||  and  it  is  written  in  it,  'Where  there  is  a 
son,  a  daughter  does  not  inherit.'     Imma  Shalom  said  to  him, 

*  iix  and  W  are  both  words  of  evil  association  in  the  Old  Testament, 
especially  connected  with  religious  defection;  Iit<  n^a  is  Hosea's  opprobrious 
name  for  Bethel  (4'^  5%  10');   for  ?V  cf.  Hos.  5*,  W,  etc. 

t/.  e.,  heretic.  Jebamoth  102b,  "A  heretic  (f<J^^)  asked  R.  Gamaliel," 
etc.;  in  Midr.  Tehillim  on  Ps.  10  near  the  end,  the  questioner  is  a  'philosopher.' 

J  The  estate  of  their  father. — Cf.  the  request  addressed  to  Jesus,  Bid  my 
brother  divide  the  inheritance  with  me,  Luke  12'^. 

§  See  Num.  278.— The  Sadducees  (Tosephta,  "Boethusians")  held  that  a 
daughter  could  inherit  from  her  father,  inasmuch  as  a  granddaughter  whose 
father  was  dead  inherited  from  her  grandfather.  Tos.  Jadaim  2-",  Baba 
Bathra  115^. 

II  Cf.  Matt.  5^'  ff  .  The  reading  ><'^><  is  original;  it  was  changed  to  '^^i  by 
editors,  who  made  the  superficial  observation  that  the  following  quotation 
from  the  Gospel  is  identical  with  Gamaliel's  from  that  law. 


THE   JEWISH   CANON  105 

May  thy  light  shine  like  the  lamp !  Rabban  Gamaliel  rejoined, 
The  ass  came  and  kicked  over  the  lamp !"  * 

The  story  of  Imma  Shalom  has  no  pertinence  to  the  subject 
of  Sabbath  16;  it  is  brought  in  here  because  the  judge  in  his 
decisions  cites  the  'aicoii  gilion.  That  this  name  is  a  perversion 
of  evayyeXiop  -j-  is  put  beyond  question  by  the  quotation  of  an 
utterance  of  Jesus  which  we  read  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  5^^4 

The  rabbinical  puns  attach  themselves  to  the  word  gilion  in 
the  preceding  passage — "R.  Meir  called  it  'awen  gilion,"  etc. 
Gilion  itself,§  as  a  name  for  the  gospel,  is  another  example  of  the 
same  kind  of  wit;  the  word  properly  signifies  a  blank,  writing 
material  not  written  on,  as  the  margins  of  a  manuscript  or 
blank  spaces  in  one;  1|  the  evayyeXiov  is  nothing  but  a  gilion,  a 
blank. 

Constantly  coupled  with  the  gospel  in  the  passages  we  have 
before  us  are  the  j"'J''i2n  ''"iSD.  Mitiim  is  the  common  name  in 
the  Talmuds  and  Midrashim  for  heretics;  that  is,  Jews  who 
maintained  opinions  or  practised  rites  and  customs  at  variance 

*  Substantially  the  same  story,  without  any  names,  is  told  in  Pesikta,  Echa 
(ed.  Buber,  p.  122^,)  and  from  the  Pesikta  in  Jalkut  on  Isa.  1  (§  391),  as  an 
illustration  of  the  venality  denounced  in  Isa.  1-^  The  bribes  are  respec- 
tively a  silver  lamp  and  a  little  golden  ass  (asses  colt);  the  last  words  are 
n-(ijcn  nN  n^D  r\s2.  This  apparently  proverbial  expression  occurs  in  another 
story  of  the  venality  of  the  priests  of  the  second  temple  in  Jer.  Joma  1',  Sifre, 
Num.  ■§  131  (on  25'-),  Pesikta,  Ahare  (ed.  Buber,  f.  177S  Wayikra  Rabba 
21**,  Jalkut,  Ahare,  near  the  beginning. 

t  Cf.  Rashi  on  Sabb.  116  (in  uncastrated  editions)  PJ'cn  nsoSn^'?  i-ip  i^no'-i 
nS'jjin  iniN  piip  pa'  ^dS  jr'?j  px  (Evangile). 

t  Imma  Shalom's  words:  "May  thy  light  shine  like  the  lamp,"  not  im- 
probably contain  an  allusion  to  Matt.  5'",  "Let  your  light  so  shine  before 
men,"  etc.  Gudemann  (Religionsgeschichtliche  Studien,  1876,  pp.  79  ff.), 
comparing  the  groups  of  stories  about  bribery  cited  in  note*  above,  con- 
jectures that  in  the  original  version  Gamaliel's  present  was  not  an  ass  (■>■"") 
but  a  measvu-e  Ocn)  of  gold — an  allusion  to  the  lamp  under  the  bushel. 
Matt.  5'«. 

§  Cod.  M  consistently  I^'jj  (sing.);  Tos.,  and  edd.  in  Sabb.  I.  c.  have  the 
plural. 

II  E.  g.  M.  Jadaim  3*. — It  is  evident  that  the  Babylonian  Amoraim  who 
discuss  the  Baraitha  in  Sabb.  116^  were  ignorant  of  the  origin  of  the  name; 
they  know  only  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word,  'blank,  margin.'  But 
the  contradictions  which  this  involves  bring  them  very  close  to  the  true 
explanation:  The  sense  must  be,  the  books  of  the  heretics  are  like  blank 
pages.  The  mutilation  or  perversion  of  names  as  a  testimony  of  pious 
abhorrence  is  common  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  is  explicitly  enjoined,  e.  g.  in 
Tos.  Aboda  Zara,  6*. 


106  THE   JEWISH   CANON 

with  the  standards  of  the  community  at  large  and  the  teaching 
of  its  recognized  authorities.*  The  term  conveyed  the  same 
reprobation  as  its  Christian  equivalent,  and  was  as  freely  ap- 
plied. The  vexatious  questioners  who  bring  up  the  difl&culties  of 
scripture  are  called  minim,  even  when  their  questions  betray  no 
tendency  more  dangerous  than  a  disposition  to  pester  the  rabbis,  j 
It  may  be  suspected  that  they  are  sometimes  fictitious  inter- 
locutors, put  on  the  stage  only  to  give  the  doctors  an  opportunity 
to  show  how  easily  such  captious  questions  can  be  disposed  of; 
the  audience  of  pupils  not  infrequently  intimate  their  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  evasive  answer,  and  ask  for  themselves  a  serious 
solution. 

The  heretics  with  whom  the  rabbis  of  the  first  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era  had  to  do  were  not  a  single  school  or  sect,  much 
less  were  they  exponents  of  a  coherent  and  consequent  system 
of  thought;  they  represent  all  the  varying  tendencies  which  in 
that  age  led  individuals  or  groups  to  diverge  more  or  less  widely 
from  the  high  road  of  sound  doctrine  and  correct  usage. J  There 
are  heretics  who  deny  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  or  at  least 
that  the  belief  has  any  foundation  in  scripture;  and  to  the  same 
class  belong  those  who  affirm  that  there  is  only  one  world. § 
Some  deny  that  there  is  any  divine  retribution;  others,  at  the  op- 
posite extreme,  deny  that  God  receives  the  penitent. 

There  are  heretics  who  deny  revelation — "  the  law  is  not  from 
heaven."  In  the  damnation  of  these  infidels  the  rabbis  include 
those  who  impugn  a  single  word  in  the  written  law  or  the  most 
subtle  point  in  the  deductions  of  the  learned. ||  Those  who 
ignore  "the  seasons  and  equinoxes" — that  is,  the  rabbinical  de- 
termination of  the  calendar,  are  also  heretics;  singularities  in 
the  form  of  the  phylacteries  or  the  manner  of  wearing  them 
are  "heretical  ways";  turning  the  face  to  the  East  in  prayer  is 
a  heretical  custom.     In  particular,  certain  peculiarities  in  the 

*  Cf.  Rashi  on  Gittin  45^:   Sni  nan"?  vr^m  irNB-  >nin^  .pn. 

t  Sadducees,  Samaritans,  Romans — especially  emperors — philosophers  and 
unlaelievers,  miscellaneously  play  the  same  role  and  propound  the  same  ques- 
tions. 

t  See  Jer.  Sanhedrin  10'  (Johanan) :  "  Israel  was  not  exiled  until  there  were 
formed  twenty-four  sects  of  heretics." 

§  M.  Berakoth  9^ 

II  Sanhedrin  99^,  cf.  Tanchuma,  Ki  Tissa  17. 


THE  JEWISH  CANON  107 

slaughtering  of  animals  are  condemned  as  the  practise  of  the 
heretics. 

A  heresy  of  a  different  type  was  the  recognition  of  "two 
authorities,"  or  powers  (nT'lD"!  '•:*w'),  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  ex- 
pressed, of  more  than  one  divinity  (nin^t<),  especially  in  the 
creation  of  the  world.  According  to  Tosephta  Sanhedrin  8', 
Adam  was  created  at  the  end,  "in  order  that  the  heretics  might 
not  say  that  God  had  a  helper  in  his  work."  *  These  allusions 
do  not  disclose  the  meaning  or  motive  of  the  heretical  contention. 
It  is  only  enveloping  obscurity  in  confusion  to  label  their  error 
with  names  so  charged  with  foreign  connotation  as  dualism  or 
gnosticism. t  That  they  were  influenced  by  conceptions  of  a 
godhead  too  exalted  to  do  things  himself — conceptions  which 
were  then  everywhere  in  the  air,  and,  as  we  see  in  Philo,  found 
acceptance  among  Hellenistic  Jews — may  reasonably  be  sur- 
mised, but  cannot  be  proved.  No  less  uncertain  is  the  common 
assumption  that  the  heretics  to  whom  the  Tosephta  and  Mishna 
refer  in  the  places  quoted  were  Christians.  Nothing  that  we 
know  about  the  Jewish  Christianity  of  the  second  century  would 
lead  us  to  think  that  the  part  of  Christ  in  creation  was  a  salient 
feature  of  their  apologetic,  nor  is  there  anything  distinctively 
Christian  in  the  belief  that  God  had  a  helper  in  creation. 

From  a  much  later  time — the  second  half  of  the  third  and  the 
first  quarter  of  the  fourth  century  X — are  the  discussions  in  which 
the  minim  bring  a  long  array  of  biblical  texts  to  prove  a  plurality 

*  Adam  was  not  created  an  ordinary  man,  but  a  being  of  superhuman 
dimensions  and  intelligence.  Cf.  M.  Sanhedrin  4^^;  Adam  was  created  single 
{i.  e.,  only  one  man  was  created),  "in  order  that  the  heretics  might  not  say 
that  there  is  more  than  one  power  in  heaven"  (3''DB'2  Dvy^-\  ^3^.^).  Bereshith 
Rabba  1^:  all  agree  that  the  angels  were  not  created  on  the  first  day,  that 
it  might  not  be  said  that  Michael  and  Gabriel  assisted  in  stretching  out  the 
heavens.     Therefore  angels  are  not  to  be  adored. 

t  Elisha  ben  Abuya  (Aher)  is  said  to  have  been  led  to  believe  in  "two 
authorities  "  by  seeing,  in  one  of  his  raptures,  the  "Metatron  ";  but  we  are 
none  the  wiser  for  this  information  (Hagiga  15*).  The  restrictions  put  on  the 
study  of  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis  and  Ezekiel  (M.  Hagiga  2')  imply  that 
secret  cosmological  and  theosophic  speculations,  perilous  for  common  minds, 
were  rife. 

t  The  rabbis  who  take  part  in  these  controversies  are  Johanan  (d.  ca.  279), 
Simlai,  and  Abbahu  (d.  ca.  320).  See  Sanhedrin  38^;  Jer.  Berakoth  9',  and 
parallels;  and  for  Abbahu,  the  passages  collected  by  Bacher,  Agada  der 
Palastinischen  Amoriier,  II,  115  ff. 


108  THE   JEWISH   CANON 

in  the  godhead,  such  as  the  plural  DTI^S  in  Gen.  1;  "let  us  make 
man  in  our  image"  (Gen.  1"®);  "let  us  go  down  and  confound 
their  speech"  (Gen.  11');  the  plurals  in  Gen.  35^  I^JJ  Q'^  ••:) 
DTi'^Sn  V^S;  "thrones  were  set"  (Dan.  7^),  and  similar  ex- 
pressions. That  the  disputants  who  cite  these  passages  are 
Christians  is  altogether  probable.  Johanan,  the  respondent  in 
the  earliest  of  these  controversies,  had  studied  in  Caesarea  under 
Hoshaia,  who  may  very  well  have  been  acquainted  with  Origen 
during  his  residence  in  that  city.*  Abbahu,  the  most  distin- 
guished pupil  of  Johanan,  taught  in  Caesarea,  where  he  was 
for  a  time  contemporary  with  Eusebius;  his  familiarity  with 
Greek  is  repeatedly  attested.  Simlai's  school  was  in  Lydda, 
which  was  a  Christian  bishopric  certainly  in  325  and  probably 
earlier.  We  seem  to  hear  a  distinctively  Christian  note  when 
the  minim  ask  R.  Simlai  the  significance  of  the  three  divine 
names  mn''  QTT^K  ^K  in  Jos.  22^^  and  Ps.  50Vt  The  Christians 
in  these  controversies  are,  however,  not  representatives  of  Jew- 
ish, but  of  Catholic,  Christianity.t  The  discussions  are,  in  any 
case,  much  too  late  to  throw  any  light  on  the  beliefs  of  the  her- 
etics whose  books  are  condemned  in  the  Tosephta. 

That  among  the  heretics  of  the  second  century  Jewish 
Christians  had  the  place  of  eminence  is  proved  by  many  stories 
of  the  relations  of  distinguished  rabbis  to  them.  Rabbi  Eliezer 
(ben  Hyrcanus),§  the  brother-in-law  of  Rabban  Gamaliel  II, 
was  once  arrested  on  the  ground  of  heresy  (that  is,  as  the 
sequel  shows,  on  the  charge  of  being  a  Christian),  and  brought 
before  a  Roman  magistrate,  who  said  to  him,  An  old  man  like 

*  Origen  was  in  Caesarea  for  two  or  three  years  from  215,  and  from  231  on 
it  was  his  home.  He  frequently  consulted  Jewish  teachers  about  points  of 
exegesis.  It  has  been  surmised  that  the  "Patriarchus  Huillus  "  whom  he 
quotes  as  authority  for  certain  interpretations  was  Hillel  II. 

t  Unmistakable  is  also  the  point  of  Abbahu's  polemic  (against  unnamed 
opponents)  in  Shemoth  Rabba  29*:  An  earthly  king  has  a  father  or  a  son  or 
a  brother;  but  God  is  not  so  (Isa.  44"):  "  I  am  the  first  " — I  have  no  father — 
and  "  I  am  the  last  " — I  have  no  son — "and  beside  me  there  is  no  god  " — I 
have  no  brother. 

J  As  in  the  second  century  Jewish  Christianity  was  the  heresy,  the  name 
min,  'heretic,'  was  ordinarily  equivalent  to  Christian,  and  later  was  applied 
to  Gentile  Christians  as  well.  Occasionally  Christians  of  the  uncircumcision 
are  distinguished,  as  in  Aboda  Zara  65^:  a  proselyte  who  lets  twelve  months 
pass  without  being  circumcised  is  nimxaiy  por;  cf.  Hullin  13^. 

§  Tos.  Hullin  2^*. 


THE  JEWISH   CANON  109 

you  occupying  yourself  with  these  things !  Eliezer  replied, 
One  whom  I  can  trust  is  my  judge !  The  magistrate  appHed 
these  words  to  himself  (whereas  Eliezer  meant  his  father  in 
heaven),  and  said,  Since  you  show  confidence  in  me,  very  well. 
I  thought  perhaps  these  errorists  had  seduced*  you  in  these 
matters.  You  are  acquitted.  When  he  was  dismissed  from 
court  he  was  much  distressed  because  he  had  been  arrested  for 
heresy.  His  disciples  came  to  console  him,  but  he  refused  to  be 
comforted.  Then  Rabbi  Akiba  came  and  said.  Rabbi,  may  I 
speak  without  offence  ?  He  replied.  Say  on !  Akiba  said.  Is  it 
possible  that  one  of  the  heretics  repeated  to  you  some  heretical 
utterance  and  you  were  pleased  with  it?  Eliezer  responded. 
Heaven  !  you  remind  me.  Once  I  was  walking  in  the  main  street 
of  Sepphoris,  and  met  [one  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus  the  Nazarene]  f 
Jacob  of  Kefar  Siknin,  who  repeated  to  me  a  heretical  saying  in 
the  name  of  Jesus  ben  Pantera  which  pleased  me  well.t  I  have 
been  arrested  for  heresy,  because  I  transgressed  the  injunction 
of  scripture,  "  Remove  thy  way  far  from  her,  and  come  not  near 
the  door  of  her  abode;  for  she  has  laid  low  many  slain"  (Prov. 

In  the  corresponding  passage,  Aboda  Zara  16^-17%  the  con- 
versation between  Jacob  and  Eliezer  is  reported  by  the  latter, 
as  follows:  [Jacob  asked]  It  is  written  in  your  law,  "Thou 
shalt  not  bring  the  hire  of  a  harlot  into  the  house  of  thy  God" 
(Deut.  23^^).  Is  it  permissible  to  use  it  to  build  a  privy  for  the 
high  priest?  I  had  no  answer  for  him.||  He  continued:  Thus 
did  Jesus  the  Nazarene^  teach  me,  "From  the  hire  of  a  harlot 
she  gathered  it;  to  the  hire  of  a  harlot  they  shall  return"  (Mic.  1'). 
From  a  filthy  place  they  came,  to  a  filthy  place  they  shall  go. 

*  Reading  by  conjecture,  ^n^on;  the  text  has  i3^Dn.  Cf.  Sanhedrin  43*,  107^ 
(of  Jesus)  n^DO  n^en. 

t  These  words  are  found  in  the  parallel  text,  Aboda  Zara  17^^. 

j  The  curious  halaka  quoted  below  was  perhaps  not  the  only  saying  of 
Jesus  that  pleased  Eliezer  well.  His  words  in  Sotah  48^,  "A  man  who  has 
a  piece  of  bread  in  his  basket  and  says,  What  shall  I  eat  tomorrow?  is  one 
of  them  of  little  faith,"  sound  like  an  echo  of  Matt.  6^'. — My  attention  was 
called  to  this  saying  some  years  ago  by  Professor  G.  Deutsch. 

§  The  warning  of  the  proverb  against  harlotry  applied  to  heresy.  Sim- 
ilarly Eccles.  7^*  is  interpreted  in  Koheleth  Rabba. 

II  In  Koheleth  Rabba  (on  1*)  Eliezer  gives  the  opinion  that  it  is  prohibited. 

"H  In  Koheleth  Rabba  "  So  and  So,"  as  frequently  to  avoid  the  name  Jesus. 


110  THE   JEWISH  CANON 

Rabbi  Eleazer  ben  Dama,*  a  nephew  of  Rabbi  Ishmael,  was 
bitten  by  a  serpent,  and  Jacob  of  Kefar  Sekaniaf  came  to  cure 
him  in  the  name  of  Jesus  ben  Pantera,  but  Rabbi  Ishmael  would 
not  permit  him,  saying.  You  have  no  right  to  do  it,  Ben  Dama.J 
The  latter  replied,  I  can  bring  you  a  verse  to  prove  that  he  may 
heal  me;  but  he  died  before  he  had  time  to  adduce  his  proof- 
text.  Ishmael  exclaimed,  Blessed  art  thou,  Ben  Dama,  that  thou 
didst  depart  in  peace,  and  didst  not  break  through  the  ordinance 
of  the  sages,  etc. 

The  heresy  that  could  bring  so  eminently  conservative  a 
teacher  as  Rabbi  Eliezer  into  trouble  had  plainly  a  perilous 
fascination. §  Beside  Ishmael's  nephew,  Eleazer  ben  Dama,  sev- 
eral other  rabbis  are  named  who  had  singed  their  wings  in  flutter- 
ing around  it.||  To  guard  against  its  seductive  attractions,  it  was 
forbidden  to  enter  into  discussion  with  the  heretics  or  have  any 
intercourse  with  them.^f  The  ordinance  is  introduced  in  the 
Tosephta  in  connection  with  the  prohibition  of  a  certain  mode 
of  slaughtering  animals  (bleeding  them  over  a  hole  in  the 
ground),  which  is  said  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  ritual  rules 
of  the  heretics.     The  edict  then  proceeds:** 

"  It  is  permitted  to  derive  profit  from  flesh  which  is  in  the 
possession  of  a  gentile  Q^'ii),  but  forbidden  in  the  case  of  a 
heretic  (rc);  flesh  from  an  heathen  temple  is  the  flesh  of  sac- 
rifices to  the  dead.  For  the  authorities  say:  The  slaughtering 
of  a  heretic  is  heathen  (n"lT  rm^y),  their  food  is  Samaritan  food, 
their  wine  is  libation  wine,tt  their  fruits  are  treated  as  untithed, 
their  books  are  books  of  magic  (pDDIp  ''12D),  and  their  children 
are  bastards  (j''1TDI3).     It  is  forbidden  to  sell  to  them  or  to  buy 

♦Tosephta  Hullin  2=^'-,  immediately  preceding  the  story  of  Eliezer  ben 
Hyrcanus;   Jer.  Aboda  Zara  2^,  Jer.  Sabbath  14,  end;  Aboda  Zara  27^. 

t  So  in  Aboda  Zara  27^.  The  Palestinian  tradition,  t<w  "idj,  "Poison 
Town." 

t  It  is  forbidden  to  employ  heretics  as  healers  either  for  man  or  beast  (Tos. 
Hullin  2-').     The  Mishna  allows  them  veterinary  practice. 

§  So  it  is  expressly  said  in  Aboda  Zara  17*. 

II  See  Koheleth  Rabba  on  1^;  Weiss,  Dor  wa-Dor,  P,  p.  222;  Bacher, 
Agada  der  Palastinischen  Amoraer,  III,  711. 

TJTos.  Hullin  2'^°;  cf .  Sanhedrin  38^.  The  rabbinical  prohibition  of  discus- 
sion with  Christians  is  cited  by  Trypho  in  Justin's  Dialogue,  c.  38. 

**Tos.  Hullin  22"'  ;  cf.  Hullin  13a-b. 

ft  Wine  of  idolatrous  libations. 


THE   JEWISH  CANON  111 

from  them,  to  enter  into  argument  with  them,  to  teach  their 
children  a  trade,  to  allow  them  to  heal  man  or  beast." 

The  stringency  of  this  interdict  and  the  violence  of  the  lan- 
guage in  which  it  is  couched  show  how  critical  the  situation  was 
felt  to  be.  To  emphasize  the  danger  of  having  anything  to  do 
with  the  heretics,  the  Tosephta  proceeds  to  narrate  the  stories 
of  Eleazer  ben  Dama  and  Eliezer  ben  Hyrcanus  which  I  have 
translated  above;  and  these  examples  show  plainly  that  the 
heresy  which  gave  the  authorities  the  greatest  cause  for  appre- 
hension was  Christianity. 

The  heretics  are  excluded  from  the  society  of  the  good  not 
only  in  this  world  but  in  the  other.  Their  torment  in  hell  is 
eternal:  *  "The  wicked  of  Israel  in  their  bodies  and  the  wicked 
of  the  gentiles  in  their  bodies  go  down  to  hell  and  are  punished 
there  for  twelve  months.  At  the  end  of  twelve  months  their 
souls  cease  to  be;  their  bodies  are  consumed,  and  hell  spews 
them  out  and  they  turn  to  ashes  which  the  wind  scatters  and 
strews  beneath  the  feet  of  the  righteous  (Mai.  3^^).  But  the 
heretics  and  the  apostates  and  the  informers  and  the  Epicureans,! 
and  those  who  deny  the  scriptures,  those  who  separate  them- 
selves from  the  customs  of  the  community,  and  those  who  deny 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  every  one  who  sins  and  makes 
others  sin,  like  Jeroboam  and  Ahab,  and  those  who  create  a 
reign  of  terror  in  the  land  of  the  living,  and  those  who  lay  hands 
on  the  temple — hell  will  be  locked  on  them,  and  they  w'ill  be 
punished  in  it  for  all  generations  (Isa.  66^*)."$ 

Beside  the  interdict  on  all  intercourse  with  the  heretics,  an- 
other measure  adopted  to  check  the  spread  of  heresy  was  the 
insertion  in  the  Eighteen  Benedictions  of  a  prayer  for  the  perdi- 
tion of  the  heretics.  The  Palestinian  recension  of  this  petition, 
in  the  oldest  form  in  which  it  is  preserved,  runs  as  follows:  § 
"For  the  apostates  let  there  be  no  hope,  and  may  the  proud 

*  Tos.  Sanhedrin  13^  ■'';    see  also  Rosh  ha-Shana  17a. 

t  There  is  reason  to  suspect  that  this  catalogue  of  candidates  for  hell  has 
been  amplified  in  the  course  of  time;  but  the  beginning  is  indubitably  au- 
thentic, and  that  the  heretics  take  precedence  even  of  apostates  to  heathen- 
ism is  significant. 

I  Rosh  ha-Shana  adds;   "  Hell  shall  come  to  an  end,  but  not  they  ! " 

§  Schechter,  Jewish  Quarterly  Review,  X  (1898),  pp.  654-659;  from  manu- 
scripts found  in  a  geniza  in  Cairo. 


112  THE  JEWISH  CANON 

kingdom  be  speedily  uprooted  in  our  days.  And  may  the 
Nazarenes  and  the  heretics  perish  in  a  moment."  In  the  Baby- 
lonian tradition:*  "For  the  apostates  let  there  be  no  hope;  and 
may  all  the  heretics  and  the  informers  perish  in  a  moment;  f 
and  may  the  proud  kingdom  be  uprooted  and  demolished 
speedily,  in  our  days." 

To  the  use  of  this  prayer  Jerome  in  all  probability  refers  in  a 
letter  to  Augustine  (Ep.  112  §  13):  Usque  hodie  per  totas  Ori- 
entis  synagogas  inter  Judaeos  haeresis  est,  qui  dicitur  Minaeorum, 
et  a  Pharisaeis  nunc  usque  damnatur:  quos  vulgo  Nazaraeos 
nuncupant,  etc. 

The  introduction  of  this  petition  is  ascribed  to  the  Patriarch 
Gamaliel  II  and  his  college  at  Jamnia;  the  formulation,  to 
Samuel  ha-Katon.f  The  motive  was  perhaps  not  so  much  to 
relieve  the  pious  feeling  v^hich  the  orthodox  of  all  creeds  and 
times  have  cherished  toward  misbelievers  as  to  serve  as  a  touch- 
stone for  heretics ;  §  for  we  learn  in  the  sequel  of  the  passage 
just  cited  from  Berakoth,||  that  if  the  leader  in  public  prayer 
made  a  mistake  in  reciting  any  of  the  other  petitions,  he  was 
allowed  to  proceed,  but  if  he  stumbled  in  the  petition  against 
heretics,  he  was  called  down,  because  it  was  to  be  suspected 
that  he  was  himself  a  heretic. 

The  "books  of  the  heretics"  which,  according  to  Tosephta 
Jadaim  2^^,  are  not  holy  scripture,  and,  according  to  Tosephta 
Sabbath  13^,  so  far  from  being  rescued  from  fire  on  the  Sabbath, 
are  rather  to  be  burned  on  a  week  day,  may  therefore  be — or  at 
least  include — Christian  scriptures  T[;  and  the  standing  associa- 
tion with  the  gospel  suggests  that  Christian  scriptures  were  pri- 
marily aimed  at  in  these  deliverances.**     The  violent  antipa- 

*  See  Dalman,  Worte  Jesu,  1898,  pp.  301  f. 

t  Compare  the  constellation  of  heretics,  apostates,  and  informers  in  Aboda 
Zara  26^. 

J  Berakoth  28^-29^;  of.  Megilla  17^. 

§  Like  the  recitation  of  a  creed  in  the  liturgy. 

II  The  authority  is  Rab,  quoted  by  Rab  Judah. 

^  The  Christians  were,  of  course,  not  the  only  sect  that  had  books. 

**  Taken  by  themselves,  the  words  o^ynn  i-idd  might  mean  manuscripts  of 
biblical  books  copied  by  the  heretics,  as  o^nn  ncD  in  Sanhedrin  90*^  (Sota 
33b;  Sifrfe,  §  112,  on  Num.  15";  cf.,  however,  Jer.  Sota  7\  °''^'>^  ^■^3id,  and 
see  Levy,  NHWb.  I,  530)  are  Samaritan  copies  of  the  Pentateuch,  which  the 
Samaritans  are  accused  of  falsifying.     According  to  Gittin  45*^  a  Pentateuch 


THE   JEWISH   CANON  113 

thy  which  Tarphon  and  Ishmael  manifest  toward  these  writings 
and  their  possessors  reminds  us  of  the  hostility  toward  the  Chris- 
tians and  their  books  which  breathes  in  every  Hne  of  the  inter- 
dict in  Tosephta  HulHn  2"°"",  and  makes  it  reasonable  to  infer 
that  this  intensity  of  feeling  was  aroused  by  the  same  danger. 

In  Mishna  Sanhedrin  10^  the  classes  of  Israelites  are  enu- 
merated who  have  no  lot  in  the  world  to  come — the  man  who 
denies  that  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  can  be  proved  from  the 
law;  *  he  who  denies  that  the  law  is  from  heaven;  and  the  ' Epi- 
curean.'f  "Rabbi  Akiba  says,  Also  he  who  reads  in  the  out- 
side books  (D'^JI^Tin  □''"iSD);  and  he  who  murmurs  as  an  incan- 
tation over  an  ailment  the  words  of  Exodus  IS^^""." 

On  the  words  Cil^'TiH  D''1£D  the  Babylonian  Talmud  com- 
ments :  •'npa^  niDS  ^d:  si^d  p  nsD2  n»s  pdi"'  y\    .  D^:^a  "•nsso::  sjn. 

**  Tradition  %  says,  the  books  of  the  heretics.  Rab  Joseph  §  said. 
It  is  also  forbidden  to  read  in  the  book  of  Sirach."  In  the  cor- 
responding passage  in  the  Palestinian  Talmud  we  read:  "'Also 
he  who  reads  in  the  outside  books,'  such  as  the  books  of  Sirach 
and  the  books  of  Ben  Laana."||  Koheleth  Rabba,  on  Eccles. 
12",  declares  that  he  who  brings  into  his  house  more  than  the 
twenty-four  canonical  books  brings  in  confusion,  "for  example, 
the  book  of  Sirach  and  the  book  of  Ben  Tigla."  T[ 

copied  by  a  heretic  is  to  be  burned;  one  that  had  been  in  the  possession  of  a 
heretic  is  to  be  carefully  preserved  ('JJ),  but  not  used.  The  greater  severity 
of  these  regulations  as  compared  with  those  concerning  a  copy  made  by  a  gen- 
tile (Tos.  Aboda  Zara  3^;  Jer.  Aboda  Zara  2-,  end;  see  also  Menaljoth  42^, 
top)  are  probably  attributable  to  the  suspicion  that  the  heretic  might  falsify 
the  text  in  the  interest  of  his  errors,  while  the  gentile,  who  made  copies 
only  to  sell  to  Jews,  presumably  had  no  such  motive. 

Rashi  (on  Sabbath  116*)  understands  o^yo^  ""^bd  in  this  sense — copies 
of  Old  Testament  books  made  by  heretics.  So  also  L.  Low,  Graphische 
Requisiten,  II,  19,  and  many  others,  among  whom  Bacher  is  to  be  espe- 
cially mentioned.  But  for  the  reasons  indicated  above  this  interpretation  is 
improbable. 

*  The  oldest  statement  probably  was:  "he  who  denies  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead." 

t  The  Epicurean  in  this  context  is  perhaps  a  man  who  denies  providence 
and  retribution;  cf.  Josephus,  Antt.  X,  11,  7. 

X  That  is,  authoritative  Palestinian  tradition  earlier  than  220  a.d. 

§  Rab  Joseph  bar  Hiyya,  Babylonian  Amora;  died  ca.  330. 

|(  On  the  whole  passage,  see  below,  pp.  116  f.,  where  it  will  be  shown  that  the 
inclusion  of  Sirach  in  this  condemnation  is  the  result  of  a  scribal  error. 

^  The  first  vowel  is  uncertain.     See  further  below,  p.  117*. 


114  THE   JEWISH   CANON 

In  the  light  of  these  passages  the  words  of  Akiba  have  com- 
monly been  taken  to  mean,  "books  outside  the  Jewish  canon," 
more  particularly,  as  the  mention  of  Sirach  suggests,  books  of 
the  class  which  we  call  apocrypha.  In  support  of  this  explana- 
tion is  cited  the  analogous  phrase  nil^Tin  nl^D  (Bamidbar 
Rabba  18^^)  the  Hebrew  equivalent  of  the  common  Baraitha 
(Xn''''13),  a  Mishnic  tradition  outside  the  Mishna  of  the  Patri- 
arch Judah. 

This  interpretation  is,  however,  beset  by  grave  difficulties. 
^Vhy  should  the  reading  of  a  book  like  Sirach  be  condemned  in 
this  fashion?  The  question  was  discussed  in  the  Babylonian 
schools ;  *  Abbaye  quotes  some  sayings  in  the  book  to  which 
objection  might  be  raised,  but  has  no  difficulty  in  discovering 
good  biblical  or  rabbinical  parallels  to  them.  The  one  indefen- 
sible utterance  he  singles  out  ("The  thin-bearded  man  is  crafty; 
the  thick-bearded  man  is  stupid;  he  who  blows  the  foam  from 
his  cup  is  not  thirsty;  from  him  who  says,  What  shall  I  eat  for 
a  relish  with  my  bread?  his  bread  shall  be  taken  away;  the 
whole  world  is  no  match  for  the  man  with  a  forked  beard") 
shows  how  hard  he  was  put  to  it  to  explain  why  Sirach  should  be 
on  the  Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum.  In  fact,  the  objections 
made  to  Sirach  on  internal  grounds  are  far  from  being  as  serious 
as  those  which  are  brought  up  against  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  f 
not  to  speak  of  Ecclesiastes. 

Rab  Joseph,  who  attests  the  fact  that  Sirach  was  on  the  Index, 
himself  says  in  the  course  of  the  discussion,  "We  make  homi- 
letical  use  of  the  excellent  sayings  that  are  found  in  this  book," 
and  adduces  many  such.  Authorities  of  unimpeachable  correct- 
ness in  all  periods — including  Akiba  himself — quote  Sirach  with- 
out suspicion  that  it  is  an  interdicted  book.  Mediaeval  quota- 
tions, and  the  recovery  in  recent  years  of  a  considerable  part  of 
the  Hebrew  text  from  fragments  of  several  manuscripts,  prove 
that  the  popularity  of  Sirach  continued  unabated. 

To  remove  this  evident  contradiction  it  has  been  suggested 
that  what  was  condemned  was  not  private  reading,  but  the  public 
reading  of  passages  from  Sirach  and  other  Apocrypha  in  the 
synagogue,  whereby  the  distinction  between  inspired  and  unin- 
spired writings  was  obscured.  The  principle  seems,  however, 
*  Sanhedrin  100^.  t  Sabbath  30''. 


THE   JEWISH   CANON  115 

to  have  been  early  established  that  even  the  acknowledged  hagio- 
grapha  should  not  be  read  in  the  synagogue;  *  and  if  the  public 
reading  of  uncanonical  books  had  become  in  the  second  century 
an  evil  that  needed  to  be  checked,  we  should  expect  to  find  some- 
where an  express  prohibition  of  the  practice. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  further,  that  Akiba  couples  with  the  reading 
of  the  "outside"  books  the  use  of  Exod.  15^"  as  a  charm.  He 
excludes  from  the  world  to  come  "  the  man  who  murmurs  (pub) 
over  an  ailment  the  words, '  None  of  the  diseases  which  I  inflicted 
on  the  Egyptians  will  I  inflict  on  thee:  I  am  the  Lord,  thy 
healer.'  "  f  The  use  of  verses  of  the  Bible  in  connection  with 
medication  or  with  what  we  should  call  magical  healing  was 
common  and  pious  practice;  the  most  orthodox  rabbis  had  no 
scruples  about  it.  Akiba  does  not  condemn  biblical  incantations 
in  general,  but  a  specific  formula,  and  one  which  in  itself  appears 
to  be  wholly  unobjectionable.  Why  should  the  use  of  this  par- 
ticular verse  deserve  eternal  perdition? 

The  hypothesis  which  seems  best  to  account  for  Akiba's  ab- 
horrence is  that  this  formula  was  employed  by  a  class  of  healers 
whom  he  deemed  especially  pernicious.  We  know  that  in  his 
time  the  Christian  healers  gave  the  authorities  much  trouble. { 
The  employment  of  these  heretics  to  practice  on  man  or  beast 
was  prohibited;  yet  only  Ishmael's  prompt  and  positive  inter- 
vention kept  his  nephew  Eleazer  ben  Dama  from  letting  a  Chris- 
tian cure  him  of  a  snake  bite  in  the  name  of  Jesus;  and  he 
might,  in  spite  of  his  uncle's  protests,  have  broken  through  the 
ordinance  of  the  sages  with  a  proof-text  in  his  mouth,  if  timely 
death  had  not  saved  him  from  mortal  sin.  In  the  same  context 
in  the  Palestinian  Talmud  in  which  Ben  Dama's  case  is  reported, 
another  instance  is  cited,  from  a  time  a  century  later,  in  which 
a  Christian  healer  was  called  in  to  the  family  of  one  of  the  most 

*Tos.  Sabbath  13';  cf.  M.  Sabbath  16'.  The  different  reasons  for  the 
rule  in  the  two  codes  warrant  the  inference  that  the  rule  itself  was  not  a  new 
one. 

t  Tos.  Sanhedrin  12'°  adds  the  words,  "  and  spits  "  (a  magical  averrunca- 
tion).  R.  Johanan  (Sanhedrin  101^^)  sees  in  the  spitting  a  profanation  of 
the  divine  name;  in  the  recitation  of  the  verse  itself  he  finds  no  sin.  See 
Blau,  Altjiidisches  Zauberwesen,  68  f. 

t  Precisely  as  the  healers  of  certain  modem  sects  give  concern  to  the  con- 
servators of  ecclesiastical  order. 


116  THE  JEWISH  CANON 

famous  teachers  of  his  generation.*  "A  grandson  of  Rabbi 
Joshua  ben  Levi  got  something  stuck  in  his  throat.  A  man 
came  and  murmured  a  charm  (ll^n^)  to  him  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Pandera,  and  he  recovered.  When  the  healer  came  out,  he  was 
asked,  What  did  you  murmur  to  him?  He  repHed,  A  word  of 
So  and  So  (Jesus).  Joshua  exclaimed.  It  would  have  been 
better  for  him  to  die  than  to  have  such  a  thing  happen  to  him !" 
It  is  not  a  remote  surmise  that  certain  of  these  Christians  may 
have  made  use  in  their  incantations  of  Exod.  15"^  combining  it 
in  some  way  with  the  name  of  Jesus — perhaps  even  inserting  his 
name  in  the  eflficacious  part  of  the  formula,  so  that  it  sounded, 
I  am  the  Lord  Jesus,  thy  healer. 

This  is,  of  course,  pure  guessing;  but  independent  of  all 
guesses  remains  the  strong  probability  that  Akiba's  twofold 
anathema  was  launched  against  heretical  books  and  heretical 
practices,  rather  than  against  liturgical  irregularities  or  abuse  of 
scripture  in  orthodox  circles.  This  conclusion,  so  far  as  the 
books  are  concerned,  is  in  conformity  with  the  old  Palestinian 
tradition  as  recorded  in  the  Babylonian  Talmud,  according  to 
which  the  "outside"  books  are  the  "books  of  the  heretics." 

The  impossibility  of  identifying  the  "outside  books"  with 
apocryphal  books  such  as  Sirach  appears  conclusively  when  the 
context  in  Jer.  Sanhedrin  is  considered.  The  whole  passage 
is  as  follows: 

"l^^m  p-'D  lan^Jty  n-^nso  b2\  dt'DH  ^nsD  ^^s  n:y^  p  ••nsDi 

"Rabbi  Akiba  says:  'Also  he  who  reads  in  the  outside  books.' — 
Such  as  the  books  of  Sirach  and  the  books  of  Ben  Laana;  but 
the  books  of  D"i''Dn,  and  all  books  that  have  been  written  since 
then,  he  who  reads  in  them  is  as  one  who  reads  in  a  letter. — 
What  does  this  mean?     'And  as  to  what  is  beyond  these,  my 


*  Jer.  Sabbath  14*;  cf.  Jer.  Aboda  Zara  2-;  Koheleth  Eabba  10^  The  text 
of  the  current  editions  is  castrated  out  of  respect  for  the  censorship;  see 
Aruch  s.  V.  V^^. — In  Koheleth  Rabba  the  sufferer  is  a  son  of  R.  Joshua  b. 
Levi;  the  rabbi  himself  fetches  the  healer — "one  of  those  of  Bar  Pandera." 
In  answer  to  Joshua's  question  what  charm  he  used,  he  replies:  "A  verse  of 
So  and  So  after  So  and  So  "  (Jesus). 

■j-  For  a  reconstruction  of  the  text,  see  below,  p.  121. 


THE   JEWISH   CANON  117 

son,  be  warned'  (Eccles.  12'^);  they  were  given  for  reading 
merely,  not  [like  the  scriptures]  for  laborious  study."* 

If  any  demonstration  were  needed  that  the  text  is  in  disorder 
the  labors  of  the  interpreters  would  furnish  it.  With  Tosephta 
Jadaim  2^^  before  us,  it  is  manifest  that  S"i''D  \2  and  DT'ttn 
have  exchanged  places;  the  last  clause  should  read:  "But  the 
book[s]  of  Sirach  and  all  books  that  have  been  written  since — 
he  who  reads  in  them  is  as  one  who  reads  in  a  letter";  f  that  is, 
they  are  purely  secular  writings  (cf .  Tosephta,  "  they  are  not  holy 
scripture"),  which  may  be  read  as  such,  but  are  not  a  proper 
object  of  that  reverent  and  laborious  study — a  religious  observ- 
ance and  a  meritorious  work — which  is  the  prerogative  of  the 
scriptures. 

The  dislocation  of  ^s■T'D  p  and  D"i"'On,  which  must  have 
occurred  very  early,  f  is  the  root  of  all  the  difficulties  in  which 
Babylonian  Amoraim  and  modern  scholars  have  found  themselves 
to  explain  why  Sirach  should  be  so  signally  damned.  §  With  the 
restoration  of  the  true  order  the  only  colorable  ground  for  inter- 
preting D''J1^''n,  'books  outside  the  canon,  apocrypha,'  vanishes. 

In  Mishna  Megilla  4^  the  word  D''J1!f'*nn  is  used  of  persons, 
and  stands  in  close  connection  with  mj''i2,  'heresy.'  If  a  man 
wears  his  phylacteries  on  his  forehead  or  on  the  palm  of  his  hand, 
this  is  the  way  of  heresy  (m^'^cn  "^IT  ilT  "»"iri);  if  he  covers  his 
phylacteries  with  gold  and  puts  them  on  his  sleeve,  "^"IT  riT  ''in 


*  In  Koheleth  Rabba  the  midrash  plays  on  ^o^75"^c^D:  Every  one  who 
brings  into  his  house  more  than  the  twenty-four  canonical  books  brings  in 
confusion,  for  instance,  the  book  of  Sirach  and  the  book  of  Ben  Tigla. — 
From  the  following  words,  ""^'^  nyj''  nam  jnSi  (E.  V.  "much  study  is  a 
weariness  of  the  flesh  ")  the  midrash  extracts:  un'j  ah  -\z>2  Dprh  un^j  nunS^ 
"they  were  given  merely  to  read;  for  a  weariness  of  the  flesh  (i.  e.  for  severe 
study)  they  were  not  given." — Cf.  Berakoth  28t>,  among  Eliezer's  counsels 
to  his  disciples:  "  Restrain  your  sons  from  mere  reading  "  (of  the  scriptures). 
In  Midrash  Tehillim  on  Ps.  1*  (ed.  Buber,  f.  5^),  Ps.  19"' is  explained:  David 
prays  that  his  words  may  endure  to  remote  generations,  and  that  men  may 
not  read  them  as  they  read  "na  11303^  that  is,  as  secular  books,  but  may 
study  them  as  scripture.     The  dependence  on  Jer.  Sanhedrin  10'  is  evident. 

fJoel,  Blicke  in  die  Religionsgeschichte,  I,  72  ff.,  brought  Sirach  over  into 
the  right  company;  but  left  "  dt'Dh  "  ("Tagebiicher  "  =  '')7M<^pas,  after  Griitz) 
unmolested. 

I  It  is  presupposed  in  Koh.  Rabba  on  12'^.  The  transposition  is  probably  a 
transcriptional  error  of  a  common  kind,  due  to  the  frequent  occurrence  of  ^"^flO. 

§  See  Dei  Rossi,  Meor  'Enayim,  Wilna,  1866,  p.  83  ff. 


118  THE  JEWISH  CANON 

D'^JIi'Tin.*  The  term  is  here  in  effect  synonymous  with  D"'J"'I2> 
but  evidently  carries  a  stronger  reprobation.  The  Minim  took 
Deut.  6*  hterally,  disregarding  the  prescriptions  of  scribes 
(Menahoth  37^);  t  whereas  the  CJI^fin  had  no  authority  for  their 
practise  either  in  the  written  or  the  oral  law  J — it  was,  as  the 
Munich  manuscript  has  it,  njlifTI  "31"!  nj''D,  'heresy  and  ex- 
traneous speculation.'  So  also  the  Talmud  (Megilla  24^): 
"What  is  the  meaning  [of  D'':i:f"'nn  "{m]?  We  suspect  that 
he  is  inoculated  with  heresy  (m^'^a)."  The  Hisonim  are,  there- 
fore, persons  wholly  'outside'  the  fences  of  orthodoxy,  heretics 
of  the  most  radical  type.  In  the  same  sense  the  word  is  used 
by  Akiba  in  Mishna  Sanhedrin  10^:  Q'^JI^fTin  CISD  is  a  more 
emphatic  expression  for  heretical  books — they  are  books  outside 
the  pale,  not  of  the  canon,  but  of  Judaism. 

As  types  of  these  books,  the  reading  of  which  shuts  a  Jew  out 
of  his  birthright  in  the  world  to  come,  Jer.  Sanhedrin  10^  § 
names  D'T'On  "'ISDI  T\y^b  (^  ''"ISD.  ||  On  these  enigmatical  names 
there  is  a  literature  more  voluminous  than  illuminating.  Limits 
of  space  precludes  a  discussion  of  the  many  fanciful  identifica- 
tions that  have  been  put  forward.  It  must  suffice  here  to  pursue 
our  investigation  of  the  sources. 

For  D'T'DH  '»"l£D  the  Aruch  cites,  besides  Mishna  Jadaim  4® 
and  Jer.  Sanhedrin  lOS  Hullin  60*^,  which  is  quoted  as  follows: 
"  Rabbi  Simeon  ben  Lakish  said.  There  are  many  verses  in  the 
Pentateuch  which  seem  fit  to  be  burned  like  the  books  of  ]  1  "l  *•  D,  1 

*  The  reading  px^nn  -[-^^^  attested  in  the  Aruch,  is  also  found  in  a  manu- 
script of  the  Talmud. 

t  See  Sanhedrin  88^,  where  the  principle  that  the  regulations  of  the  scribes 
have  stronger  sanctions  than  the  words  of  the  written  law  is  exemplified  by 
the  case  of  the  phylacteries. 

I  So  Maimonides  in  his  commentary  on  the  Mishna;  Rashi  on  Megilla  24^. 
§  As  emended  above,  p.  117;  cf.  p.  121. 

II  The  best  attested  spelling  is  DTiDnj  there  are  many  variations  in  man- 
uscripts, editions,  commentators,  and  lexicographers,  chiefly  affecting  the 
vowels.  Hai  Gaon  (on  M.  Jadaim  4^)  reads  oncn^  and  takes  this  for  Homeros; 
his  explanation  is  cited,  with  others,  by  Nathan  ben  Jehiel  in  the  Aruch,  and 
was  adopted  by  Mussafia  in  his  supplements  to  the  Aruch.  It  has  been  re- 
peated by  many  since.  The  reading  D">''n  is  found  also  in  Midrash  Tehillim  on 
Ps.  1**  (see  below);  but  the  forms  ending  in  d  apparently  have  no  support 
in  known  manuscripts  or  in  editions  of  the  Talmud. 

If  So  Kohut,  on  manuscript  authority;  the  first  printed  edition  has  V"^^.- 
Other  manuscripts  have  cn^cn^  etc. 


THE  JEWISH  CANON  119 

and  yet  they  are  essential  parts  of  the  law."  The  italicised 
words  are  lacking  in  the  current  editions  of  the  Talmud,  doubt- 
less because  the  censors  smelt  a  reference  to  Christianity.  The 
first  edition,  however  (Venice,  1520),  and  the  Munich  codex 
have  D*'J"'i2n  '•"ISD,  and  the  unmistakable  allusion  to  deliver- 
ances about  burning  the  books  of  heretics  such  as  are  reported 
in  Sabbath  116  *  makes  it  certain  that  this  is  the  original  read- 
ing, for  which,  at  a  comparatively  late  time,  pT'D  or  something  of 
the  kind  was  substituted. 

In  Mishna  Jadaim  4"  the  Sadducees  are  represented  as  de- 
riding certain  Pharisaic  decrees:  We  object  to  you  Pharisees 
because  you  say,  'The  holy  scriptures  make  the  hands  unclean; 
the  books  of  D"i''Dn  do  not  make  the  hands  unclean.'  Rabbi 
Johanan  ben  Zakkai  replied.  Is  this  the  only  thing  we  have 
against  the  Pharisees?  They  also  say  that  the  bones  of  an  ass 
are  clean,  but  the  bones  of  Johanan  the  high  priest  are  unclean. f 
The  Sadducees  answered.  Their  uncleanness  is  in  proportion  to 
the  affection  in  which  they  are  held.  .  .  .  He  replied,  Just  so 
with  the  holy  scriptures,  their  uncleanness  is  in  proportion  to 
the  affection  in  which  they  are  held. J  The  □"I'^an  '•"IDD,  for  which 
we  have  no  love,  do  not  make  the  hands  unclean. § 

The  general  rule  which  the  Sadducees  quote,  *  Holy  scriptures 
make  the  hands  unclean,'  is  stated  in  Mishna  Jadaim  3^  (cf. 
Mishna  Kelim  15^),  and  is  assumed  throughout  in  Tosephta 
Jadaim  2*°  *^-,  cf.  2'^;  to  show  the  absurdity  of  the  rule  they  ad- 
duce a  Pharisaic  decision  which  corresponds  word  for  word 
to  Tosephta  Jadaim  2'M|  D^^H  m  p«at2D  p-'K  j^J^'Dn  nSD, 
'the  books  of  the  heretics  do  not  make  the  hands  unclean,* 
except  that  for  D"'i''Dn  the  Mishna  has  Q'T«I2n.  The  commen- 
tators on  the  Mishna  Jadaim  4^  interpret  DI'^DH  "«"12D  as  writ- 
ings of  Jewish  heretics;  those  who  attempt  an  explanation  of 
the  word  regard  it  as  a  disparaging  term,  which  they  etymolo- 
gize as  if  it  were  coined  ad  hoc.'^    However  unconvincing  we  may 

*  See  above,  pp.  101  fF.  t  Cf.  Nidda  55*. 

J  Cf.  Tos.  Jadaim  2"».  For  t^-iipn  ^ana  the  Vienna  manuscript  of  the  To- 
sephta has  C'^icn  noD  ]     (Zuckermandel,  in  loc.) 

§  Johanan's  answer  is  an  argumentum  ad  hominem.  ||  Above,  p.  101. 

^  R.  Simson  of  Sens  (12th  century)  says:  "  These  are  the  books  of  the  Sad- 
ducees [substitution  of  n^inx  for  a^jT,  as  often],  of  which  it  is  said  in  Sab- 
bath 116  that  they  ought  to  be  burned."    Maimonides:   "Books  which  con- 


120  THE  JEWISH  CANON 

find  these  etymologies,  we  must  give  its  due  to  the  exegetical 
insight  which  recognized  that  the  context  in  the  Mishna  de- 
mands "the  heretics,"  the  minim;  and  since,  in  the  dehverance 
which  the  Sadducees  quote,  the  Tosephta  actually  has  D"'J''I2ri, 
the  inference  can  hardly  be  avoided  that  DT'Dn  in  the  Mishna 
is  either  a  corruption  or,  more  probably,  a  sophistication  of 
D''2''Dn,*  as  it  demonstrably  is  in  Hullin  60''. 

There  remains  Jer.  Sanhedrin  lOS  where  "the  books  of  Ben 
Laana  and  the  books  of  □^''On"  are  cited  as  examples  of  the 
writings  which  are  the  object  of  Akiba's  commination. — We 
have  seen  that  Akiba's  contemporaries  manifest  a  peculiarly 
violent  animosity  toward  "  the  gospels  and  the  books  of  the  here- 
tics, "  and  there  is  a  strong  presumption  that  the  ultra-heretical 
writings  against  which  Akiba  fulminates  are  the  same  that  aroused 
the  ire  of  his  colleagues.  This  presumption  is  strengthened  by 
a  confrontation  of  Jer.  Sanhedrin  10^  with  Tosephta  Jadaim 
2^^:  in  the  former,  "The  books  of  Ben  Laana  and  the  books  of 
D1''0n  .  .  .  Sirach  and  all  the  books  that  have  been  written 
since,"  etc.;  in  the  latter,  "The  gospels  and  the  books  of  the 
heretics  .  .  .  Sirach  and  all  the  books  that  have  been  written 
since,"  etc.  The  correspondence  of  the  formulation  suggests 
that  the  same  books  are  meant  in  both  cases.f 

In  the  other  places  where  D1''I2n  occurs  it  has  been  shown 
that  D''i''Dn  is  demanded  either  by  manuscript  evidence  or  by 
the  context  and  parallels,  and  the  same  is  true  here.  "The 
books  of  Ben  Laana"  we  shall  then  take  to  be,  not  obscure 
apocrypha  of  which  nothing  is  elsewhere  heard,  but  the  gospels. 

Ben  Laana  (Son  of  Wormwood  J)  has  not  the  look  of  a  real 

travene  our  law  and  set  forth  dissident  views  about  it.  They  are  called  '•isf 
oi'Dj  as  if  to  say,  May  God  thrust  them  away  and  banish  them  from  existence  I 
meaning,  destroy  them,  as  the  house  in  which  they  assemble  for  such  purposes 
is  called  Beth  Abidan,  meaning  a  house  which  may  God  cut  off." — Bertinoro's 
comment  is:  "The  books  of  the  heretics  (D''J"'nn  neo);  they  are  called  '•iop 
D-i^DH  because  they  have  exchanged  (ninn)  the  true  law  for  falsehoods." 

*  Compare  gilion,  'awen  gilion,  'awon  gilion  for  eiiayyi\iov^  above,  p.  105. 

t  It  is  the  correspondence  of  the  formulation  that  is  significant;  that  in 
the  Tosephta  Sirach  is  put  with  the  gospels  in  the  category  of  uninspired 
scriptures,  while  in  Jer.  Sanhedrin,  Sirach  as  a  secular  book  is  contrasted  with 
the  heretical  books  is  here  irrelevant. 

X  Heb.  ^^V^  is  a  bitter  and  poisonous  herb;  the  conventional  rendering 
'  wormwood '  is  not  meant  to  imply  identification  with  Artemisia  absinlhium, 
L.  The  same  reservation  must  be  made  about  the  translation  '  hemlock  '  below. 


THE   JEWISH  CANON  121 

name  or  a  parody  on  a  name,  but  rather  of  an  opprobrious  nick- 
name, conveying  an  allusion  to  something  in  the  character  or 
history  of  the  person  decorated  with  it.  The  point  of  the  allu- 
sion lies,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  the  association  of  n^J?^  in  the  Old 
Testament  with  apostasy  and  the  fate  of  apostates.  In  Deut. 
29*^  for  example,  the  Israelite  who  turns  away  from  the  Lord 
to  follow  the  gods  of  the  idolatrous  peoples  becomes  "a  root 
bearing  hemlock  and  wormwood"  (n:j;^T  ty«n);  *  Jer.  9^^""  "  Be- 
cause they  have  forsaken  my  law.  ...  I  will  make  this  people 
eat  wormwood  and  drink  hemlock."  Most  pertinent  of  all 
these  passages  is  Jer.  23^^ :  f  "Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  of 
Hosts  concerning  the  prophets;  I  w411  make  them  eat  wormwood 
and  drink  hemlock,  for  from  the  prophets  of  Jerusalem  de- 
fection (nsi^n,  religious  defection)  is  gone  abroad  into  all  the 
land."  The  application  of  such  utterances  to  Christianity  and 
its  founder  lay  near  at  hajid.  Rabbi  Jonathan  teaches  that  wher- 
ever the  Bible  speaks  of  defection  (nSUn,  often  with  the  con- 
notation of  hypocrisy)  it  means  heresy  (m^''D).  Jesus  was  in 
the  eyes  of  the  orthodox  a  seducer  of  the  people,^  a  false  prophet; 
he  appears  in  the  Talmud  as  Balaam,  the  type  of  the  false  proph- 
ets.§  From  this  point  of  view  Ben  Laana,  "  Wormwood  Man," 
is  a  cognomen  as  apt  as  it  is  pointed. ||  The  "books  of  Ben 
Laana"  would  then  be  the  gospels;  compare  Mark  1^  The 
beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.^f 

The  text  of  the  much  vexed  passage,  Jer.  Sanhedrin  lOS  is 
accordingly  to  be  restored  as  follows: 

*  Note  the  use  of  this  verse  in  Heb.  12'^;  cf.  Acts  8-'. 

t  See  the  whole  of  this  drastic  oracle  against  the  false  prophets,  Jer.  23''"'. 

j  Sanhedrin  43a,  107b;  cf.  Deut.  13. 

§  E.  g.  Sanhedrin  106b. 

II  If  Ben  Laana  is  meant  for  Jesus,  the  probability  is  strong  that  Ben 
Tigla  in  Koheleth  Rabba  is  another  nickname. 

Tl  Another  possible  association  of  the  name  may  perhaps  be  suggested. 
The  story  of  Imma  Shalom  gives  evidence  that  the  Jews  were  acquainted 
with  a  Hebrew  gospel  related  in  some  degree  to  our  Matthew.  In  the  account 
of  the  crucifixion  in  Matt.  27^*  we  read  that  they  offered  Jesus  ohov  fiera  xo^'Js, 
fi€fj.i.yfi4vov.  By  x"^^  some  bitter  drug  is  doubtless  intended.  In  the  Greek 
Bible  xo^^  sometimes  translates  •iJ)'''  (Prov.  5^  Lam.  3'';  it  more  frequently 


122  THE  JEWISH  CANON 

"*He  who  reads  in  the  arch-heretical  books.' — Such  as  the 
books  of  Ben  Laana  [Gospels]  and  the  books  of  the  heretics 
[Christians].  But  as  for  the  books  of  Ben  Sira  and  all  books 
that  have  been  written  since  his  time,  he  who  reads  in  them  is 
as  one  who  reads  in  a  letter." 

It  is  evident  from  the  texts  that  have  been  discussed  that 
there  was  a  time  when  Christianity  had  for  many  Jews  a  danger- 
ous attraction,  and  when  the  circulation  among  Jews  of  the  gos- 
pels and  other  Christian  books  gave  the  teachers  of  the  synagogue 
serious  apprehension.  The  earliest  mention  of  the  ordinance 
against  "the  books  of  the  heretics"  is  in  Mishna  Jadaim  4®, 
in  a  tilt  between  the  Sadducees  and  Johanan  ben  Zakkai,  which 
may  have  occurred  before  the  war  of  66-70,  and  cannot  be 
more  than  a  decade  or  two  later.  Johanan's  successor  at  the 
head  of  the  college  and  council  at  Jamnia,  Rabban  Gamaliel 
II,  caused  the  petition  for  the  downfall  of  the  heretics  to  be  in- 
serted in  the  prescribed  form  of  prayer;  he  and  his  sister  Imma 
Shalom,  the  wife  of  Eliezer  ben  Hyrcanus,  figure  in  the  story 
of  the  Christian  judge  who  quotes  the  gospel;  in  the  same  time 
falls  the  intercourse  of  Eliezer  ben  Hyrcanus  with  Jacob  of 
Kefar  Sekania,  "a  disciple  of  Jesus  the  Nazarene."  In  the 
second  and  third  decades  of  the  second  century  the  situation  be- 
comes more  strained;  all  the  great  leaders  of  Judaism — Ishmael,* 
Akiba,  Tarphon,  Jose  the  Galilean — inveigh  against  the  here- 
tics and  their  scriptures  with  a  violence  which  shows  how  serious 
the  evil  was.f  Tarphon  would  flee  to  a  heathen  temple  sooner 
than  to  a  meeting  house  of  those  worse-than-heathen  whose  de- 
nial of  God  is  without  the  excuse  of  ignorance;  the  usually  mild- 
mannered  Ishmael  finds  pious  utterance  for  his  antipathy,  like 
many  another  godly  man,  in  an  imprecatory  Psalm:  "Do  not  I 
hate  them,  O  Lord,  that  hate  thee  ?  .  .  .  I  hate  them  with  per- 
fect hatred."    Akiba,  who  was  never  a  man  of  measured  words, 

Btands  for  ^'sn).  It  is  conceivable,  therefore,  that  in  the  passage  correspond- 
ing to  Matt.  27^*  the  Hebrew  gospel  read:  ^i^^^  J1'D  P\  If  so,  the  Jewish 
reader  might  well  be  pardoned  for  seeing  in  the  narrative  a  signal  fulfilment 
of  prophecy.  No  such  fulfilment  would  be  necessary,  however,  to  bring  to 
mind  the  words  of  Jeremiah. 

*  See  also  Ishmael's  interpretation  of  the  dreams  of  a  heretic,  Berakoth  56*^. 

t  Just  as  in  the  Church  Fathers,  the  increasing  vehemence  of  their  ob j  ur- 
gations  of  heresy  corresponds  to  the  alarming  progress  gnosticism  waa 
making. 


THE  JEWISH  CANON  123 

-consigns  to  eternal  perdition  the  Jew  who  reads  their  books. 
The  rigorous  interdict  on  all  association  with  the  Christians* 
breathes  the  same  truculent  spirit;  it  bears  every  mark  of  having 
been  framed  in  the  same  age  and  by  the  same  hands,  as  does 
also  the  anathema  which  condemns  the  heretics,  before  all  the 
rest,  to  eternal  torment  in  hell.f 

In  the  second  half  of  the  century  the  polemic  against  Christi- 
anity abruptly  ceases.  From  Akiba's  most  distinguished  pupil 
and  spiritual  heir,  Rabbi  Meir,  nothing  more  serious  is  reported 
than  his  witticism  on  the  name  of  the  gospel  —  evayyeXtov 
'awon  gilion;  from  Nehemiah,  only  that  among  the  signs  of  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah  he  included  the  conversion  of  the  whole 
empire  to  Christianity,  t  Of  the  other  great  teachers  of  the 
generation  no  antichristian  utterances  are  preserved.  What  is 
much  more  significant,  at  the  close  of  the  century  the  Mishna 
of  the  Patriarch  Judah  embodies  none  of  the  defensive  ordi- 
nances against  heresy  which  we  find  in  the  Tosephta  and  the 
Talmudic  Baraithas.  §  The  decision  that  the  Gospels  and  the 
books  of  the  heretics  are  not  holy  scripture  is  not  repeated  in 
the  Mishna;  it  deals  only  with  the  Jewish  antilegomena,  Ecclesi- 
astes  and  the  Song  of  Songs,  the  long-standing  differences  about 
which  were  passed  on  by  a  council  about  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century — a  decision  which  did  not,  however,  prevent  the 
differences  from  lasting  through  the  century.  ||  The  only  mention 
of  heretical  writings  is  preserved  as  a  mere  matter  of  history  in 
the  account  of  the  Johanan  ben  Zakkai's  defense  of  the  Phari- 
saic ordinances  against  the  criticisms  of  the  Sadducees. 

We  shall  hardly  err  if  we  see  in  all  this  an  indication  that  the 
danger  had  passed  which  in  the  early  decades  of  the  century  was 
so  acute.  The  expansion  of  Christianity  had  not  been  checked, 
nor  was  the  attitude  of  the  Jewish  authorities  to  it  more  favorable 
than  before;  but  with  the  definitive  separation  of  the  Jewish 
Christians  from  the  synagogue  they  ceased  to  be  a  spreading 
leaven  of  heresy  in  the  midst  of  the  orthodox  community,  and 

*  Tos.  Hullin  2^0  «  ;  above,  pp.  110  f.  t  Above,  p.  111. 

X  Sanhedrin  97^,  and  parallels. 

§  If  M.  Hullin  2'  be  regarded  as  an  exception,  it  is  an  exception  that  proves 
the  rule;  cf.  Tosephta  Hullin  2'»-2''. 
11  M.  Jadaim  3\ 


124  THE   JEWISH  CANON 

became  a  distinct  religious  sect  outside  the  pale  of  Judaism. 
The  complete  and  final  separation  was  brought  about  by  the  re- 
bellion of  the  Jews  in  the  reign  of  Hadrian.  This  rebellion 
was  not  merely  a  national  uprising,  but  a  messianic  movement. 
Its  leader  was  hailed  as  the  "star  out  of  Jacob"  predicted  by 
Balaam  (Num.  24^^),*  and  Bar  Coziba  became  Bar  Cocheba.  In 
such  a  movement  the  Christians  could  not  join  without  denying 
their  own  Messiah,  Jesus,  the  signs  of  whose  imminent  return 
they  doubtless  discerned  in  the  commotions  of  the  time.  They 
stood  aloof  from  the  life-and-death  struggle  of  their  people,  and 
incurred  the  double  resentment  of  their  countrymen  as  not  only 
heretics  but  traitors,  f  Before  this  storm  they  retreated  to  re- 
gions beyond  the  Jordan,  where  their  neighborhood  was  heathen. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  government,  however,  they  were  Jews;  and 
the  edicts  excluding  all  Jews  from  residence  in  the  new  city, 
Aelia  Capitolina,  ended  the  succession  of  Jewish  bishops  of 
Jerusalem;  henceforth  the  church  was  a  church  of  gentile 
Christians,  with  Greek  bishops.  From  that  time  Jewish  Chris- 
tianity, deprived  of  the  prestige  which  the  see  of  the  mother 
church  gave  it,  left  behind  with  its  primitive  ideas  by  the  devel- 
opment of  Catholic  doctrine — trying  to  be  both  Jew  and  Chris- 
tian, and  succeeding  in  being  neither,  as  Jerome  puts  it — stig- 
matized as  heresy  by  both  camps,  languished  and  dwindled  in 
the  corners  in  which  it  had  taken  refuge. 

The  Catholic  Christianity  which  succeeded  it  in  the  centres  of 
Palestine  was  essentially  a  foreign  religion,  and  had  little  at- 
traction for  Jews.  By  its  side  Judaism  could  live,  as  it  did  by 
the  side  of  a  dozen  other  foreign  religions,  not  without  contro- 
versy,J  but  without  fear  that  it  would  spread  like  a  pestilence  in 
the  orthodox  community.  The  Patriarch  had  no  need,  there- 
fore, to  repeat  in  his  Mishna  the  deliverances  against  heresy 
which  had  been  so  necessary  seventy-five  or  a  hundred  years 
earlier.  But  the  memory  of  the  crisis  and  the  stringent  measures 
it  demanded  were  perpetuated  in  codifications  of  the  oral  law 

*  This  application  of  the  prophecy  is  attributed  to  Akiba. 

t  There  is  no  reason  whatever  to  question  the  assertion  of  Justin  Martyr, 
a  contemporary,  that  efforts  were  made  to  force  them  into  line. 

J  On  the  controversies  of  the  end  of  the  third  and  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century,  see  above,  pp.  107  f . 


THE   JEWISH  CANON  125 

and  traditions  less  exclusively  dominated  than  his  by  a  practical 
end.* 

Not  the  least  interesting  result  of  an  examination  of  these 
sources  is  the  fact  that  the  attempt  authoritatively  to  define  the 
Jewish  canon  of  the  Hagiographa  begins  with  the  exclusion  by 
name  of  Christian  scriptures. 

Cambridge,  Mass., 
September,  1910. 


*  It  is  perhaps  not  without  a  bearing  on  this  point,  that  a  prominent  part 
in  the  redaction  of  the  Tosephta  is  attributed  to  Hoshaia,  who,  at  Caesarea^ 
was  in  close  contact  with  a  vigorous  and  aggressive  Christianity. 


XI 

THE   GREEK  AND  THE  HITTITE  GODS 
By  William  Hates  Ward 

Even  to  the  present  day  the  sway  of  Phenicia  on  the  mind 
of  the  scholars  of  early  history  is  not  wholly  broken.  It  has  been 
believed  as  if  it  were  a  fact  unquestionable  that  the  Phenicians, 
with  their  wide  commerce  and  colonies,  were  the  intermediaries 
of  culture  and  art  between  Egypt  and  the  Greek  world.  Slowly, 
quite  too  slowly,  we  are  correcting  that  error.  We  have  learned 
that  a  high  culture  could  grow  up,  and  did  grow  up,  locally,  very 
little  or  not  at  all  affected  by  Egypt,  and  long  before  the  Pheni- 
cians became  a  maritime  and  colonizing  power.  Phenicia  as  a 
state  did  not  exist  before  about  1000  or  1100  b.  c.  To  be  sure, 
the  Phenician  coast  was  there,  and  the  local  cities  of  Tyre  and 
Sidon  and  others  mentioned  in  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets  existed, 
just  as  dozens  of  other  towns  were  scattered  along  the  coast,  and 
inland  on  the  rivers,  but  they  were  not  predominant.  W^e  are 
misled  if  when  scholars  like  W.  Max  Miiller,  in  discussing  the 
Egyptian  raids  of  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  dynasties,  speak 
proleptically  of  Phenicia,  we  imagine  that  they  mean  to  use  the 
term  in  anything  other  than  a  geographical  sense.  Long  be- 
fore the  rise  of  Phenicia  as  a  state,  not  only  Babylonia,  but  the 
Cretan  cities  had  achieved  their  own  indigenous  culture;  while 
yet  another  culture  and  civilization  was  predominant  throughout 
the  entire  region  of  Asia  Minor  and  Syria  ruled  or  influenced  by 
the  Hittite  Empire. 

Scholars  now  have  begun  to  discredit  the  preeminent  in- 
fluence of  the  Phenicians  on  Greek  art  and  religion.  They  have 
learned  that  the  Phenicians  came  too  late,  long  after  the  flowering 
of  ^gean  civilization  as  seen  in  Crete,  Mycense,  Tiryns  and 
Hissarlik.  The  materials  for  this  primitive  Greek  civilization 
are  vastly  more  abundant  than  those  from  Phenicia.     Equally 

127 


128  THE    GREEK   AND   THE   HITTITE   GODS 

we  have  now  a  much  richer  mine  of  materials  to  illustrate  Hit- 
tite  art  than  that  of  Phenicia.  In  the  study  of  Greek  religion 
we  no  longer  have  to  go  to  Phenicia  for  important  Oriental  in- 
fluence, for  much  more  likely  sources  are  at  hand.  Accordingly 
Eduard  Meyer,  in  the  article,  "Phoenicia,"  in  the  "Encyclo- 
pedia Biblica,"  recognizes  the  late  emergence  of  the  Phenicians, 
although  he  inconsistently  gives  them  their  usually  accepted 
influence  in  the  field  of  art  and  religion.  Even  this  is  too  much 
to  allow.  He  says  there  was  no  distinctive  Phenician  style;  for 
"  a  decorative  Western  Asiatic  style  was  developed,  which  began 
to  exert  an  influence  on  Greek  art  from  the  ninth  century  up- 
wards." This  is  true,  yet  he  says,  "The  Egyptian  emblem  of 
the  moon  became  a  half-moon  with  the  sun  or  a  star  around  it." 
But  this  was  not  Phenician,  nor  related  to  Egypt,  but  was 
common  in  Asia  Minor  much  earlier,  taken  from  Babylonia. 
S.  Reinach  in  his  "Le  Mirage  Orientale,"  has,  as  remarked  by 
Ridgeway  in  his  "Early  Age  of  Greece"  (i,  p.  473),  shattered 
the  pretensions  of  the  Phenicians  to  have  exercised  any  special 
influence  on  Mycenaean  art.  "  Indeed,"  he  says,  "  Mycenae  rather 
influenced  Phenicia." 

The  Mycenaean  art,  if  it  has  borrowed  nothing  from  the  Phe- 
nicians, appears  equally  to  have  borrowed  very  little  from  Egypt> 
and  not  very  much  from  the  Hittite  civilization  of  Asia  Minor. 
What  we  call  Greek  art,  however,  borrowed  much  after  the  My- 
cenaean period.  The  people  of  the  Mycenaean  or  Cretan  period 
were  Pelasgians ;  and  the  Homeric  Achaeans  came  later,  and  the 
Dorian  rule  later  still,  and  they  borrowed  much  from  the  Ionian 
coasts,  and  little  from  Phenicia;  and  the  Ionian  coasts  were  satu- 
rated with  Hittite  culture,  a  culture  itself  complex,  representing 
its  own  indigenous  elements,  mixed  with  Babylonian,  and  even 
Egyptian;  for  the  Hittites  came  in  contact  with  Babylonian  cult- 
ure say  nearly  as  early  as  2000  b.  c,  and  with  Egyptian  culture 
about  the  same  time  in  the  Hauran  region  of  Southern  Palestine, 
as  proved  by  Hittite  seals  discovered  there. 

Students  of  classical  mythology  often  admit  an  Oriental 
influence  in  the  cases  of  a  few  Greek  deities  and  heroes,  such 
as  Aphrodite  and  Herakles,  but  they  usually  suppose  that  in- 
fluence to  be  unimportant.  The  most  distinguished  of  the 
living  Grecians,  Dr.  Wilamowitz-Mollendorf,  declares  it  baseless 


THE   GREEK   AND  THE   HITTITE   GODS  129 

("hodenlos")  to  seek  the  Greek  Herakles  in  the  Babylonian 
story.  Herakles,  he  says,  is  originally  Dorian,  an  ideal  Dorian 
man.  Even  if  there  was  an  original  Dorian  Herakles,  there  was 
time  enough  for  the  Dorians  to  have  adopted  Gilgamesh  during 
the  centuries  that  they  were  in  Thrace,  just  across  the  Helles- 
pont from  Phrygia  and  Troas.  We  must  remember  that  nowa- 
days we  are  putting  back  a  somewhat  advanced  civilization  in 
all  Asia  Minor  by  many  centuries.  The  classicists  therefore 
are  in  error  when  they  seem  to  imagine  that  such  names  as  Kad- 
mos  and  Melikertes  (Melkarth)  prove  that  the  Greeks  got  their 
Oriental  touch  from  Semitic  Phenicia.  They  learned  it  nearer 
at  home  and  earlier,  from  Asia  Minor,  from  a  time  before  the 
Phenicians  began  to  rule  the  seas,  from  the  Ionian  coasts  which 
were  not  Seoiitic,  but  largely  under  Aryan  rule,  while  under 
Semitic  influence  from  Assyria  and  the  Aramaean  states,  but 
hardly  from  Babylonia  in  any  direct  manner. 

Herakles  is  one  of  those  demigods  which  we  can  trace  back  to 
the  very  earliest  Babylonian  art,  a  demigod,  whether  Herakles 
in  Greece,  or  Gilgamesh  in  Babylonia.  The  two  had  the  same 
character,  performed  the  same  exploits.  Did  Herakles  slay  the 
Nemean  lion?  So  Gilgamesh  fought  lions.  Did  Herakles 
conquer  the  Kretan  bull  ?  Gilgamesh  did  as  much.  Did  Hera- 
kles capture  the  hind  with  the  golden  horns?  Gilgamesh  is 
holding  horned  stags.  Did  Herakles  kill  the  Lernaean  hydra? 
Gilgamesh  or  his  double,  Bel,  with  the  dragon,  is  figured  with  the 
same  exploit.  Did  Herakles  fight  the  monsters,  Cheiron  the 
centaur,  Geryon  and  Cacus?  So  Gilgamesh  appears  in  art, 
fighting  monsters  whether  Eabani,  Humbaba,  or  the  divine  bull. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  Greek  myths  of  Herakles  is 
that  which  relates  the  last  of  his  twelve  labors.  He  was  to  bring 
back  to  Eurystheus  a  golden  apple  from  the  tree  in  the  garden 
of  the  Hesperides,  guarded  by  a  serpent.  But  the  Hesperides 
gave  it  to  him,  gift  of  immortality.  What  is  this  but  the  fruit  of 
the  tree  of  life,  which  was  always  guarded  by  genii  of  some  sort, 
winged  figures,  or  fantastic  animals,  or  even  serpents?  (Ward, 
"Seal  Cylinders  of  Western  Asia,"  fig.  710.)  It  was  a  design 
familiar  from  Assyria  and  all  over  Asia  minor,  and  the  fruit  of 
the  tree  was  plucked  off  (ib.  p.  230)  as  the  gift  of  life  for  the  wor- 
shiper.    It  corresponds  to  the  Gokart  tree  of  the  Persian  Bunda- 


130  THE   GREEK  AND  THE   HITTITE   GODS 

hesh,  protected  by  ten  kar-fish.  It  was  the  fruit  of  this  tree  of 
life  that  Herakles  was  bidden  to  take  by  force  from  its  protector, 
which  the  Bundahesh  represents  as  a  great  lizard.  Among 
other  parallels  observe  his  fight  with  the  Stymphalian  birds. 
Gilgamesh  and  Marduk  are  constantly  confused  in  Assyrian 
art,  and  it  is  the  composite  god  we  see  engaged  in  such  a  labor 
in  this  scene  (ib.  figs.  595-598).  Other  parallels,  quite  as  re- 
markable, do  not  supply  easy  illustration,  but  the  Gilgamesh  epic 
supplies  them  and  they  have  attracted  scholars.  Such  is  the 
leprosy  which  attacked  Gilgamesh,  to  be  compared  with  the 
poisoned  shirt  of  Herakles.  Both  made  a  wonderful  journey 
to  the  regions  of  the  dead  in  search  of  immortality,  in  the  course 
of  which  Helios  gives  Herakles  his  boat  that  he  may  go  to  the 
Garden  of  the  Hesperides,  while  Gilgamesh  is  given  the  boat  by 
the  Babylonian  Noah.  The  parallels  are  too  close  to  allow  any 
other  conclusion  than  that  Herakles  is  but  the  Babylonian,  or 
rather  the  Asianic  Gilgamesh,  made  Dorian  and  Greek. 

Like  Herakles,  Adonis  was  an  Eastern  immigrant,  confessed 
Syrian,  with  a  Semitic  name,  and  identified  with  Tammuz,  lover 
of  Aphrodite  as  Tammuz  was  of  Ishtar.     His 

"  annual  wound  in  Lebanon  allured 
The  Syrian  damsels  to  lament  his  fate 
In  amorous  ditties  all  a  summer's  day, 
While  smooth  Adonis,  from  his  native  rock 
Ran  purple  to  the  sea." 

But  he  was  a  late  entrant  into  Greek  mythology,  recognized  as 
Oriental,  and  to  be  mentioned  here  only  as  illustrating  earlier 
and  nearly  forgotten  adoptions  of  Asianic  deities. 

It  is  a  fact  familiar  to  mythologists  that  Aphrodite  is  a  com- 
posite goddess  having  both  Oriental  and  Greek  elements.  And 
it  is  frequently  affirmed  that  she  is  related  to  the  Babylonian 
Ishtar,  through  the  intermediary  Astarte,  or  Ashtoreth,  of  the  Phe- 
nicians,  or  some  Syrian  Ashera,  or  Atergatis.  It  is  natural  that 
these  mythologists  should  go  no  farther  than  to  the  Phenicians, 
for  the  Phenicians  are  quite  familiar  to  our  Greek  scholars,  but 
they  know  little  of  the  Asiatic  empires  back  of  Phenicia  and  the 
nearer  Syria.  It  will  be  well  to  study  a  little  the  data  open  to  us. 
There  is  no  similarity,  as  they  are  represented  in  art,  between  the 


THE   GREEK   AND  THE   HITTITE   GODS  131 

Greek  Aphrodite  and  the  Babylonian  Ishtar.  The  former  is  a 
naked,  or  nearly  naked,  goddess  of  beauty  and  love,  unarmed 
and  unused  to  war.  But  the  Babylonian  Ishtar  is  most  decently 
clothed  (ib.  p.  155  ff.)  and  has  a  distinctly  military  character, 
being  represented  in  the  earlier  period  with  alternate  clubs  and 
the  serpent  scimitar  rising  from  each  shoulder,  and  in  the  middle 
period  with  a  quiver  and  sheafs  of  arrows  from  either  shoulder. 
To  be  sure  she  is  in  literature  a  goddess  of  love  also,  but  not  in 
art.  When  she  descends  into  the  under-world  sexual  love 
ceases  on  the  earth.  It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  both 
Aphrodite  and  Ishtar  are  connected  with  the  planet  Venus.  The 
classical  dictionaries  seem  to  think  it  necessary  to  make  Aphro- 
dite a  moon  goddess  also,  because  they  connect  her  so  closely 
with  Astarte  who  may  have  been  a  lunar  goddess,  although  the 
moon  is  masculine  in  Semitic  languages.  If  the  Syrian  Astarte 
really  represents  the  moon,  and  not  the  planet  Venus,  it  may  be 
because  she  was,  as  I  think  probable,  to  the  Syrians  and  Phe- 
nicians  an  adventive  deity,  brought  over  from  the  conquering 
Hittites,  in  whose  language,  as  in  other  Aryan  tongues,  the  moon 
would  be  feminine.  We  seem  to  have  Astarte  occasionally  with 
the  crescent  in  her  head,  and  it  is  supposed  that  the  crescent 
represents  the  horned  moon,  and  that  it  connects  itself  with  the 
crescent  of  a  cow's  horns.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that  the 
Hittite  Ishtar,  if  we  may  call  her  so,  stands  on  a  cow,  or  bull. 

Now  I  wish  to  describe  this  Hittite  goddess  more  definitely, 
with  a  view  to  showing  it  not  improbable  that  she  was  the  origin 
of  the  Greek  Aphrodite,  at  least  in  some  of  the  manifestations  of 
Aphrodite. 

I  have  elsewhere  (American  Journal  of  ArchcBology,  Vol. 
Ill,  No.  1)  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  were  three  prin- 
cipal Hittite  deities;  one  a  dignified  superior  god,  very  likely 
Tarkhu,  who  is  fully  clothed  to  below  the  knees,  and  who  usu- 
ally carried  no  weapon,  or  only  a  spear  on  which  he  rests,  or  a 
short  rod,  or  scepter,  though  rarely  in  a  militant  attitude;  next 
a  goddess,  who  was  probably  his  wife,  usually  nude,  sometimes 
clad,  and  who  often  stands  on  a  cow  or  bull,  and  third,  a  mili- 
tant god,  clad  in  a  very  short  garment,  who  wears  a  spiked  helmet,, 
stands  on  the  mountains,  leads  a  bull  by  a  thong,  both  of  whose 
hands  are  filled  with  weapons,  and  who  is  probably  the  son,  cor- 


132  THE   GREEK   ATS^D  THE   HITTITE   GODS 

responding  to  the  later  Attis,  of  the  superior  god  and  goddess. 
These  three  were  probably  the  origin  of  the  Egyptian  Osiris, 
Isis  and  Horns,  who  were  a  late  trinity. 

This  goddess  doubtless  had  many  names,  as  she  was  wor- 
shiped by  various  peoples.  She  seems  to  be  called  Ishkara, 
and  in  Hittite  Hepi.  While  sometimes  decently  clothed,  as  in 
the  Boghaz-Keui  relief,  which  may  represent  the  marriage  of 
the  chief  god  and  goddess,  or  the  conquest  of  the  capital  by  a 
superior  tribe,  and  the  submission  of  the  goddess  and  her  citadel 
to  the  conquering  deity,  or  some  other  important  ceremonial 
event,  she  is  usually  nude,  and  takes  pains  to  display  her  nudity 
by  drawing  aside  her  garment  (Ward,  1.  c,  p.  296  ff.).  She  is 
the  goddess  of  beauty  and  love,  and  in  the  better  art  is  made  as 
attractive  as  possible.  First  we  see  her  with  her  garment  wholly 
withdrawn  on  each  side,  then  on  one  side,  and  sometimes  winged. 
Her  characteristic  bird  is  the  dove,  as  it  is  of  Aphrodite,  and 
this  is  a  conclusive  proof,  as  it  appears  again  and  again,  of  the 
connection  between  the  two. 

The  resemblance  to  Greek  representations  of  Aphrodite  is 
notable.  The  Ionian  colonists  were  familiar  with  her  in  Asianic 
art.  If  they  had  a  native  Aphrodite  of  their  own  they  could  not 
have  helped  identifying  the  two,  and  giving  to  their  own  the  at- 
tributes of  the  Asianic  goddess.  Aphrodite  was  not  only  the 
goddess  of  love,  but  was  related  to  moisture,  rain  and  the  fruits, 
and  here  she  has  her  parallel,  and  probably  her  origin  in  the  Asi- 
anic Ishkara,  or  Hepi,  who  is  often  represented  in  her  modified 
forms  with  streams  of  water  about  her,  much  as  the  Cyprian 
Aphrodite  is  said  to  have  arisen  out  of  the  foam  of  the  sea. 

The  question  naturally  arises  what  is  the  relation  between  the 
Hittite  naked  goddess  and  the  naked  goddess  of  Babylonian 
worship,  Zirbanit,  wife  of  Marduk.  This  latter  is  a  very  widely 
extended  type,  common  at  a  late  period  from  Babylonia  through 
Syria  to  Cyprus  and  Egypt.  But  this  is  to  be  noticed,  that  she 
does  not  appear  in  the  archaic  art  of  Babylonia,  not  even  in  the 
less  ancient  period  of  the  elder  Sargon.  She  is  introduced  into 
the  Babylonian  pantheon  not  much  before  the  time  of  Ham- 
murabi, with  her  consort,  Marduk  and  Ramman-Adad,  and  was 
then  introduced  from  the  West,  that  is,  from  the  Syro-Hittite 
region  where  she  was  worshiped.     In  Babylonia  she  is  entirely 


THE   GREEK  AND  THE  HITTITE   GODS  133 

nude  and  lifts  both  hands  under  her  breasts.  In  Egypt  she  is 
also  a  late  importation,  and  there  her  hands  generally  hang  down 
by  her  side.  These  forms  are  both  later  than  the  true  Hittite 
form  of  the  goddess  with  the  single  garment  withdrawn,  and  I  be- 
lieve they  spread  from  Babylonia,  which  had  adopted  the  god- 
dess from  the  West  at  the  time  of  the  great  western  invasion 
W'hich  culminated  in  putting  Hammurabi  on  the  throne.  This 
invasion  was  Hittite,  and  the  Hittites  were  not  Semites,  but 
probably  Aryans,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  they  were 
an  intrusive  powerful  fighting  people  who  commanded  an  hege- 
mony over  a  wide  extent  of  Semitic  or  Turanian  races. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  the  Greek  Aphrodite  has  no  clear 
relation  to  the  true  Babylonian  Ishtar,  with  lions  and  quivers 
full  of  arrows  from  her  shoulders,  or,  at  an  earlier  period,  with 
clubs  and  scimitars;  but  to  the  naked  Hittite  goddess  who  appears 
with  garment  wholly  or  partly  withdrawn  and  with  her  dove. 
Nor  is  Aphrodite  particularly  related  to  the  Assyrian  Ishtar 
(ib.  p.  248  ff.)  who  is  of  a  separate  type,  characterized  by  a  circle, 
or  halo,  of  stars,  about  her  body,  or  weapons  radiating  from  her, 
tipped  with  stars.  This  is  a  comparatively  late  representation, 
somewhat  less  than  1000  b.  c,  an  Ishtar,  perhaps,  of  Arbela, 
differing  from  the  northern,  or  western  Hittite  goddess,  attended 
by  the  dove.  She  appears  to  have  originated  at  a  period  much 
later  than  the  older  dominant  Hittite  form,  possibly  from  it,  after 
the  goddess  had  been  partially  supplied  with  clothes,  or  even 
with  wings.  The  goddess  of  love  was  not  received  by  the  Greeks 
by  way  of  Phenicia,  as  so  often  assumed;  for  the  Phenician  god- 
dess Astarte  followed  the  middle  Babylonian  type  of  Zirbanit, 
with  hands  on  her  breasts.  Astarte's  name,  to  be  sure,  is  from 
Ishtar,  and  not  from  Zirbanit,  but  the  two  goddesses  were  con- 
founded, through  their  common  function  of  love,  the  military 
function  of  Ishtar  being  lost,  and  Astarte  became  the  composite 
of  the  two. 

If  it  be  true,  as  I  have  attempted  to  show,  that  the  Greek 
Aphrodite  was  closely  related  to  the  Syro-Hittite  nude  goddess 
who  has  been  called  Ishkara  or  Hepi,  and  thus  was  in  part  de- 
rived from  the  Asianic  civilization  of  Asia  Minor,  rather  than  from 
the  Phenician  civilization,  as  usually  supposed,  we  are  then  led 
to  ask  whether  any  of  the  Greek  male  deities  were  derived  in 


134  THE   GREEK  AND  THE   HITTITE   GODS 

whole  or  in  part  from  the  two  Syro-Hittite  gods  whom  we  may 
designate,  the  one  as  Tarkhu-Marduk,  and  the  other  as  Teshub- 
Adad.     We  will  first  consider  the  latter  god  (ib.  p.  288  ff.). 

A  most  extraordinary  figure  of  Teshub  (SBA,  vol.  XXXII, 
p.  25)  which  Professor  Sayce,  following  Miss  Dodd,  takes  to  be 
an  Amazon,  has  lately  been  discovered  at  Boghaz-keui,  perfectly 
preserved,  and  giving  details  of  his  embroidered  garments.  He 
corresponds  very  closely  in  form  and  function  with  the  Greek 
Ares,  the  Roman  Mars.  Like  Aphrodite,  Ares  was  so  far  recog- 
nized as  an  Asianic  god  that  he  fought  on  the  side  of  the  Trojans 
at  the  siege  of  Ilium.  According  to  Hesiod  and  ^schylus  he 
was  the  father  of  the  race  of  Kadmos,  for  his  daughter  Hermione 
was  the  wife  of  Kadmos,  and  the  warriors  of  Kadmos  came  from 
the  teeth  of  the  dragon  of  Ares,  which  Kadmos  sowed.  Thebes 
was  thus  particularly  sacred  to  him,  and  Thebes  was  a  city  of 
the  Pelasgians.  He  corresponds  very  exactly  to  Teshub- Adad. 
Teshub  is  figured  definitely  as  the  god  of  war,  is  helmeted  like 
Ares,  and  the  only  helmeted  god  in  the  Hittite  or  Assyrian  pan- 
theon, as  Ares  was  the  only  helmeted  among  the  Greek  gods. 
Both  gods  are  heavily  armed.  The  Hittite  Teshub  if  found  de- 
picted on  a  Greek  vase  would  instantly  be  recognized  as  Ares. 
I  think  it  certain  that  the  Greek  Ares  was  not  borrowed  from  the 
Babylonian  Nergal,  god  of  war,  nor  from  the  later  Babylonian 
Adad,  but  directly  from  the  corresponding  Asianic  god  of  war, 
or  at  least  drew  from  him  his  form  and  attributes.  The  Hittite 
Teshub  was  introduced  into  Babylonia  as  Adad  (ib.  p.  131  ff.) 
and  there  took  the  purely  Babylonian  weapon,  the  thunderbolt, 
which  the  Hittites  themselves  later  adopted  and  gave  to  Teshub. 

While  Teshub-Adad  is  probably  to  be  identified  with  Ares, 
the  Hittite  god  in  any  region  where  he  was  worshiped  as  chief 
deity  would  be  later  identified  by  Greeks  and  Romans  with  their 
chief  deity  Zeus  or  Jupiter.  Thus  we  have  Jupiter  Dolichenos 
worshiped  in  Kommagene,  in  just  the  region  that  belonged  to 
Teshub.  He  is  another  form  of  Teshub,  with  axe  and  the  later 
thunderbolt,  with  the  short  garment  about  his  loins,  and  standing 
on  a  bull.  But  he  lacks  the  helmet.  Teshub's  relation  to 
Poseidon  will  be  considered  later. 

The  third,  or  rather  the  first,  of  the  Syro-Hittite  triad  (ib. 
p.  284  ff.)  is  the  god  of  dignified  presence,  well  clad,  not  usually 


THE    GREEK   AND   THE   HITTITE   GODS  135 

carrying  any  weapon,  or  sometimes  resting  on  a  spear,  or  even 
carrying  the  Hittite  axe,  whom  we  call,  provisionally,  Tarkhu, 
the  Kassite  Turgu,  and  the  biblical  Terah,  father  of  Abraham, 
"Thy  father  was  a  Hittite"  says  the  prophet  and  Terah  was 
a  Hittite  god.  He  passed  into  middle  Babylonian  worship, 
with  a  western  immigration,  somewhat  before  the  time  of  Ham- 
murabi, and  in  two  forms,  and  so,  probably  by  different  routes. 
From  him  is  derived  the  chief  god  Marduk  (ib.  p.  163  ff.)  of 
the  Hammurabi  dynasty,  and  also  the  Martu  (ib.  p.  176  ff.) 
god  of  the  West,  who  appears  to  be  one  of  the  two  variant  forms 
under  which  Adad,  or  Ramman,  was  worshiped.  As  Marduk 
he  carries  the  old  Babylonian  scimitar,  or  serpent-weapon,  at 
rest  by  his  side,  and  as  Martu  he  simply  holds  a  short  scepter  to 
his  breast. 

For  the  earliest  reported  emergence  of  Marduk  we  are  in- 
debted to  the  Chronicle  concerning  Sargon  and  Naram-Sin 
published  in  King's  "Chronicles  Concerning  Early  Babylonian 
Kings,"  ii.  pp.  8,  9.  We  are  there  told,  as  translated  by  King, 
of  Sargon: 

"  The  soil  from  the  trenches  of  Babylon  he  removed 

And  the  boundaries  of  Agade  he  made  like  those  of  Babylon. 

But  because  of  the  evil  which  he  had  committed  the  great  lord 

Marduk  was  angry. 
And  he  destroyed  his  people  by  famine. 
From  the  rising  of  the  sun  unto  the  setting  of  the  Sun 
They  opposed  him  and  gave  him  no  rest." 

As  I  understand  this,  the  account,  as  written  by  a  Babylonian 
scribe,  shows  that  Sargon  was  punished  for  his  attack  on  Baby- 
lon. He  filled  up  the  trenches,  or  canals,  with  the  earth  on  their 
banks,  and  extended  his  borders  of  Agade  (modern  Anbar) 
southward  to  Babylon,  His  later  misfortunes  the  Babylonian 
scribe  refers  to  this  insult  to  Marduk  (ib.  p.  11);  Dungi  was  later 
punished  for  similar  impiety: 

"  Dungi,  the  son  of  Ur-Engur,  cared  greatly  for  the  city  of  Eridu,  which 

was  on  the  shore  of  the  sea 
But  he  sought  after  evil,  and  the  treasure  of  Esagila  and  of  Babylon, 
He  brought  out  as  spoil.     And  Bel  was  .   .  .  ,  and  body  and  .   .  . 

he  made  an  end  of  him." 


136  THE   GREEK   AND   THE   HITTITE   GODS 

We  gather  from  this  again,  that  this  later  Babylonian  scribe  re- 
fers the  misfortunes  of  Dungi  to  the  anger  of  Bel,  by  whom  he 
doubtless  meant  Marduk.  That  Marduk's  name  appeared 
in  the  original  text  from  which  he  drew  these  records  we  may 
doubt. 

Neither  as  Marduk  nor  as  Martu  does  the  Babylonian  god  seem 
to  have  definitely  influenced  the  Greek  religion,  for  the  original 
Hittite  Tarkhu  was  too  near  at  hand  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria. 
Yet  Tarkhu  was  usually  so  little  specialized  by  an  attribute, 
being  simply  a  standing  clad  deity,  that  he  might  be  related  to 
any  Syrian  Baal,  or  to  almost  any  Greek  god,  Zeus,  or  Apollo, 
or  Dionysos.  But  this  may  be  mentioned,  that  to  Marduk  be- 
longs the  planet  Jupiter,  and  the  same  planet  belongs  to  the 
Greek  Zeus;  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  it  belonged  to  Teshub. 
It  is  a  fact  of  moment  that  of  the  five  planets  four  were  male  in 
both  Babylonian  and  Greek  mythologies,  and  one,  and  the  same 
one,  female;  and  this  implies  some  early  genetic  relation  be- 
tween the  two;  and  under  that  category,  the  fact  that  Marduk 
and  Zeus  were  both  Jupiter  seems  to  require  us  to  presume  that 
the  intermediary  Hittite  god  may  have  been  also  Jupiter.  Still 
either  of  them,  like  almost  any  other  god,  may  also,  in  certain 
aspects,  have  been  related  to  the  sun. 

The  weapons  carried  by  the  Babylonian  and  Hittite  gods,  as 
also  by  the  Greek,  require  some  consideration.  In  the  earliest 
Babylonian  art  we  have  the  usual  weapons  of  war  and  the  chase, 
the  short  sword,  the  bow,  the  club,  also,  perhaps,  later,  the  long 
spear.  Besides  these  are  two  divine  weapons  carried  only  by 
gods.  One  of  these  is  the  triple  thunderbolt,  which  appears  at 
an  extremely  early  period;  the  other  is  the  sickle-like  serpent 
scimitar.  The  thunderbolt  appears  in  the  hand  of  a  goddess, 
in  archaic  art;  while  the  serpent  scimitar  makes  its  appearance 
also  very  early,  in  the  armory  of  Ishtar,  and  in  the  hand  of  a  god, 
at  the  time  of  the  dynasties  of  Ur.  It  is  a  weapon  with  a  rather 
long  handle,  and  the  end  curved  like  a  sickle.  It  is  never  used 
in  war,  but  only  carried  by  a  deity  of  high  rank,  and  particularly 
by  Marduk,  altho  it  is  earlier  than  his  emergence.  This  weapon 
was  originally  a  serpent,  like  Moses'  rod;  and  in  the  earlier  period 
the  curved  portion  is  clearly  the  thickened  neck  of  a  serpent  like 
the  asp,  and  the  head  with  open  mouth. 


THE   GREEK   AND  THE   HITTITE   GODS  137 

But  it  was  a  true  divine  weapon.  At  an  early  period  it  was 
doubled,  to  form  the  Babylonian  eaduceus;  but  this  was  con- 
ceived of  not  so  much  as  a  weapon,  but  rather  as  a  honorific 
attribute  of  the  god,  or  more  often  of  Ishtar.  The  scimitar, 
as  I  have  said,  is  the  special  attribute  of  Marduk,  carried  by  him 
not  in  a  militant  attitude,  but  held  downward  by  his  side,  as  com- 
ported with  his  quiet  dignity.  The  Hittite  Tarkhu,  from  whom 
he  was  derived,  sometimes  held  an  axe  or  a  peaceful  spear  or  a 
crook  in  the  same  way;  and  when  the  Babylonians  adopted  the 
god,  they  gave  him  their  own  peculiar  divine  serpent  scimitar, 
just  as  they  gave  their  thunderbolt  to  Adad,  who  had,  in  his 
original  Hittite  worship,  only  the  usual  military  weapons,  such  as 
the  axe  and  club.  In  the  later  Assyrian  art,  when  Marduk  was 
represented  fighting  the  dragon  he  made  use  of  this  same  scimitar 
or  of  a  trident  thunderbolt;  but  in  Babylonian  art  he  was  almost 
always  represented  as  standing  in  a  quiet  attitude,  holding  his 
scimitar  downward  by  his  side. 

Now  this  sickle-like  scimitar  we  find  in  Greek  art,  and  always 
belonging  to  a  god  only,  never  as  an  implement  of  war.  It  was 
given  by  Hermes  to  Perseus,  under  the  name  of  the  apirrj^  when 
he  went  to  behead  the  Gorgon  Medusa.  The  Greek  word 
apTrr)  is  applied  properly  to  this  divine  weapon,  while  the  usual 
word  for  the  sickle  is  hpeiravov.  But  the  representation  of 
Perseus  slaying  the  sea-monster  is  precisely  parallel  to  the  con- 
flict of  Marduk  with  the  dragon. 

The  Greek  thunderbolt  and  trident  were  also  both  probably 
derived  from  the  Babylonian  thunderbolt.  I  have  said  that 
originally  the  thunder-god  Teshub-Adad,  as  worshiped  by  the 
Hittites,  was  armed  solely  with  the  usual  weapons  of  war,  while 
the  triple  thunderbolt  was  an  invention  of  the  early  Babylonians. 
But  the  thunderbolt  became  familiar  all  over  the  Asianic  region, 
hardly  before  1000  b.  c,  and  is  the  special  weapon  of  Zeus,  in 
all  probability  taken  from  Asia  Minor,  and  usually  in  the  form 
in  which  we  see  it  in  the  earliest  Babylonian  and  the  later  As- 
syrian art,  grasped  in  the  middle  with  the  trident  prongs  each 
side.  It  is  thus  used  by  Marduk  against  Tiamat.  But  the  thun- 
derbolt as  wielded  by  the  Babylonian  Adad  was  a  single  trident, 
and  such  it  became  finally  as  carried  by  the  Hittite  Teshub,  re- 
placing the  earlier  ordinary  weapons  of  war.    It  is  the  trident  that 


138  THE   GREEK  AND   THE   HITTITE   GODS 

is  wielded  by  Poseidon,  god  of  the  sea  and  ruler  of  the  storms. 
After  him  the  storm-month,  December-January,  was  Poseidon. 
It  is  not  strange  that  the  thunderbolt,  passed  over  from  the 
inland  Babylonians  and  Hittites,  and  taken  by  the  sea-faring 
Greeks  of  the  islands  and  coasts,  should  have  been  assigned  to  a 
sea-god,  who  was,  like  Adad,  also  god  of  storms;  and  so  it  is  that 
Poseidon  carries  the  trident  of  Adad.  I  am  aware  that  the 
classical  authorities  generally  suppose  that  the  trident  is  noth- 
ing more  than  a  fish-spear,  and  as  such  it  is  even  figured  in  late 
art;  but  Poseidon  was  no  fisherman.  He  had  a  far  higher  role. 
His  trident  smote  the  land  as  well  as  the  sea.  The  thunder- 
bolt much  more  befits  him  than  the  economic  fish-spear.  Like 
Adad,  his  animal  was  the  bull.  A  number  of  scholars,  like  Cur- 
tius,  have  concluded  that  Poseidon  was  not  an  original  Greek 
deity,  but  was  first  worshiped  by  the  Ionian  colonists  and  was 
a  god  of  the  Carians  and  Leleges.  The  Carians  had  a  native 
god  corresponding  to  Poseidon,  whom  the  Greeks  knew  as 
Osogoa,  or  Zeus  Labrandenos,  Zeus  with  the  axe,  w^ho,  under 
either  form,  carried  the  thunderbolt  and  the  axe  in  a  warlike 
attitude,  both  weapons  those  that  were  assumed  by  the  Hittite 
Teshub-Adad.  Zeus-Dolichenus  is  the  same  god,  all  forms  of 
the  original  Hittite  god.  It  is  probable,  then,  that  the  Greek 
Poseidon  with  his  trident,  who  fought  in  the  Trojan  War  on  the 
side  of  Asiatics  against  the  Greeks,  was  originally  the  Hittite 
Teshub-Adad,  and  reached  the  Greeks  by  way  of  the  Ionian 
settlers  of  the  Ionian  coasts  of  Asia  Minor,  where  the  native  sea- 
faring men  worshiped  him  as  master  of  the  sea  and  its  storms, 
and  gave  him  the  axe  and  thunderbolt,  the  latter  retained  as  the 
trident  of  Poseidon, 

I  have  said  that  as  carried  by  the  Hittite  Teshub  the  thunder- 
bolt is  later  than  the  usual  weapons  of  war,  the  sword,  axe  and 
spear.  It  may  be  worth  while  to  observe  that  the  Hebrews 
did  not  know  the  thunderbolt,  but  imagined  Yahve  with  arrows 
and  spear,  as  the  god  of  lightning  and  storm.  As  Teshub 
strided  over  the  mountains,  brandished  his  sword  and  axe  and 
spear  to  represent  the  glittering  lightning  and  led  a  bull  to 
typify  the  bellowing  thunder,  so  Yahve  marched  over  the  moun- 
tains in  anger,  with  the  light  of  his  arrows  he  went,  and  he  was 
represented  at  Sinai,  Bethel  and  Dan  under  the  form  of  a  bull. 


THE   GREEK  AND  THE   HITTITE   GODS  139 

I  have  tried  to  show  more  at  length  elsewhere  (American  Journal 
of  Semitic  Languages,  xxv,  3)  that  the  Hebrew  Yahve  was  related 
originally  to  the  Syro-Hittite  Adad.  Professor  Haupt,  not  long 
ago,  surprised  scholars  by  an  argument  to  show  that  Jesus  was 
of  Aryan  and  not  Semitic  lineage.  But  an  argument  may  be 
presented  for  a  more  surprising  conclusion,  namely,  that  Yahve 
was  an  Aryan  god.  We  are  definitely  told  that  Yahve  was 
originally  worshiped  as  Shaddai,  which  is  not  unlikely  to  be  a 
dialectic  form  of  Adad,  or  Hadad-Adad,  But  Adad  was  de- 
rived from  Teshub,  and  Teshub  was  Hittite,  and  the  Hittites 
were  Aryan,  and  knew  Indra  and  Varuna  and  Mitra.  So  we 
are  at  liberty  to  believe  that  Yahve  was  Aryan  and  not  originally 
Semitic.     Stranger  things  have  turned  out  true. 

New  York,  September  15,  1910. 


XII 

BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 

By  Stephen  Langdon 

The  Babylonian  conception  of  life  after  death  and  the  relation 
of  the  dead  to  the  living  shews,  as  far  as  our  archaeological  and 
literary  sources  permit  us  to  infer,  little  change  of  ideas  during 
the  three  milleniums  {circa  3500-300  b.  c.)  represented  in  our 
sources.  In  essaying  the  task  of  outlining  the  Babylonian  ideas 
of  the  other  world  and  the  final  fate  of  man,  their  burial  cus- 
toms must  necessarily  form  the  first  subject  for  investigation. 
It  is  precisely  here  that  we  find  reflected  the  deeper  spiritual 
conceptions  of  eschatology,  for  ritual  is  the  surest  and  most 
fruitful  source  in  studying  the  deeper  problems  of  religions.* 

When  the  civilization  and  political  power  of  Babylonia  and 
Assyria  perished  at  the  hands  of  the  Persians,  Greeks  and 
Parthians,  the  ancient  cities  became  mounds  used  largely  as 
Parthian  and  Sassanian  burial  grounds.  In  fact  all  the  more 
important  sites — Babylon,  Nippur,  Ur,  Erech,  Sippar,  Nine- 
veh, etc.,  have  been  sites  of  Parthian,  Christian  and  Arabian 
cemeteries  to  this  day.  Abundant  material,  therefore,  exists 
for  studying  the  late  period  which  in  a  certain  measure  con- 
tinued the  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  classical  peoples.  The 
entire  absence  of  burial  remains  of  the  Assyrian  period  in  the 

*  Babylonian  burial  customs  have  been  described  by  Jeremias,  Holle  und 
Parodies,  Der  Alte  Orient,  I,  3,  1903,  now  antiquated  by  the  recent  excava- 
tions at  Nippur  (Haynes  and  Hilprecht),  Fara,  Abu-Hatab  and  A§§ur  (German 
Oriental  Society,  chiefly  conducted  by  Andrae  and  Koldewey)  and  by  the 
fact  that  the  so-called  "  Hades  Reliefs  "  used  both  by  him  and  by  Meissner, 
Wiener  Zeitschrift  jiir  Kunde  des  Morgenlandes,  xii,  59-66,  are  not  scenes  of 
hell  but  represent  the  ritual  of  healing  the  sick.  Jastrow,  Religion  of  Babylonia 
and  Assyria,  595-611,  gives  a  resumS  of  what  was  known  at  that  time  [1898]; 
see  also  Perrot  et  Chipiez,  Histoire  de  I'Art,  ii,  369-378,  based  principally  upon 
the  reports  of  Taylor's  excavations  at  Ur  and  Eridu;  see  also  ibid.,  pp.  353-& 
[upon  the  whole  antiquated]. 

141 


142  BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 

ruins  of  Nineveh  and  the  neighboring  mounds  led  to  the  infer- 
ence of  early  excavators  that  the  Assyrians  either  threw  their 
dead  into  the  rivers  or  transported  them  to  the  sacred  soil  of 
Sumer  where  vast  necropolises  were  found  dating  from  the  ear- 
liest period.*  But  the  recent  German  excavations  at  Assur 
have  given  us  decisive  information  concerning  Assyrian  burial 
customs,  although  an  exact  date  cannot  always  be  assigned  to 
the  different  tombs,  coflfins  and  urns  found  beneath  the  Par- 
thian remains.  Nevertheless  the  suggestion  of  Loftus,  one  of 
the  early  excavators  who  directed  his  attention  principally  to 
this  question,  cannot  be  disregarded,  namely,  that  the  vast 
majority  of  Assyrians  preferred  to  bury  their  dead  in  the  sacred 
soil  of  Sumer.  The  total  absence  of  inscriptions  on  or  within 
the  tombs  and  coffins  makes  a  decision  on  this  point  difficult,  f 
The  evidence  concerning  burial,  so  far  as  the  inscriptions  are 
-concerned,  contains  no  reference  to  cremation.  The  dead  were 
ordinarily  committed  to  the  earth, J  in  which  case  every  vestige 
has  long  since  disappeared,  or  in  the  case  of  more  careful  burials 
brick  vaults  were  used.§  The  more  ordinary  custom,  however, 
consisted  in  placing  the  body  upon  a  slightly  raised  platform  of 
bricks  provided  with  a  reed-mat  (huru),  over  which  was  fitted 
a  large  cover  made  either  of  one  piece  of  baked  clay,  or  by 
fitting  together  several  pieces. ||     A  more  simple  method  of  in- 

*  On  the  mooted  question  of  the  date  of  these  necropolises,  whose  great 
antiquity  is  denied  by  Jastrow,  see  HUprecht,  Explorations  in  Bible  Lands, 
288.  The  two  necropolises  Fara  (Sukurru-Suruppak)  and  Abu-Hatab 
(Kisurra),  excavated  by  the  Germans,  are  certainly  very  ancient. 

t  See  Perrot  et  Chipiez,  352. 

X  As  on  the  Stele  of  the  Vultures  {circa  3200  B.C.)  where  a  number  of  soldiers, 
naked,  are  being  covered  with  earth  by  attendants  who  first  placed  the  bodies 
in  a  heap,  each  lying  horizontally,  one  above  the  other,  with  the  head  of 
one  above  the  feet  of  the  one  beneath;  beside  the  funeral  pile  is  an  ox  teth- 
ered for  sacrifice.  The  most  recent  and  accurate  reproduction  of  this,  the 
earliest  known  funeral  scene,  is  Heuzey  and  Thureau-Dangin's  recent  edition 
of  the  Stele  des  Vautours. 

§  The  greatest  possible  confusion  still  exists  concerning  the  periods  to  which 
we  must  assign  the  different  forms  of  burial.  The  earliest  vaults  discovered 
by  Taylor  at  Ur,  are  illustrated  and  described  in  Perrot  et  Chipiez,  1.  c. 

II  The  covers  seem  to  have  been  usually  oblong  and  spacious  enough  to 
admit  the  body  together  with  the  numerous  water  jars  and  other  accoutre- 
ments necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the  soul.  Occasionally  the  platform  is 
round  with  a  correspondingly  shaped  cover.  For  drawings  after  Taylor  see 
Perrot,  1.  c,  and  Hilprecht,  1.  c,  176. 


BABYLONIAN   ESCHATOLOGY  143 

terment  consisted  of  a  baked  clay  coffin  in  capsule  form  made 
by  fitting  together  two  deep  bowls,  or  the  coffin  might  consist 
of  a  huge  vase  simply.*  This  description  applies  to  the  Sumerian 
period,  as  well  as  the  later  Semitic  period.  The  best  examples 
of  vaults  have  been  found  recently  at  Assur,  the  ancient  capital 
of  Assyria.  In  Babylonia  the  commodious  brick  vaults  seemed 
to  have  been  walled  up  after  the  last  interment,  but  in  Assyria 
an  opening  at  the  west  end,  as  well  as  a  covered  and  walled  stair- 
case leading  down  to  it,  has  been  found  in  all  cases.  Family 
vaults  of  this  kind  have  been  found  in  great  numbers  at  Assur,f 
containing  skeletons,  sometimes  in  considerable  numbers. 

In  one  of  the  vaults  at  Assur  were  found  funeral  urns,  cone- 
shaped,  made  of  baked  clay  and  containing  the  remains  of 
cremation. J  Funeral  urns  of  this  kind  had  been  found  every- 
where in  the  upper  strata  of  the  mounds  of  Babylonia,  but  di- 
rect evidence  of  cremation  for  the  classical  period  had  been  lack- 
ing. Remains  of  cremation  were  found  in  Nippur  in  the  lowest 
Sumerian  strata  in  the  court  of  the  stage-tower  beside  the  remains 
of  vaults ;  §  according  to  Professor  Hilprecht  a  large  crematorium 
stood  near  the  corner  of  the  stage-tower.  Several  years  ago  a 
German  expedition  exploited  the  remains  of  two  vast  necrop- 
olises a  few  miles  south  of  Lagash,  modern  Telloh,  now  famous 
through  the  excavations  of  De  Sarzec.||  Both  were  found  to 
be  fire  necropolises,  in  which  the  ashes  of  millions  of  ancient 
Sumerians  must  have  found  a  last  resting-place.  Here  the  bodies 
were  placed  in  narrow  brick  casings,  wrapped  with  inflammable 
material  and  covered  with  soft  clay.     Cremation  was  produced 

*  In  which  case  the  body  was  mutilated.  Another  much-used  form  of 
coffin  is  the  bath-tub  shape,  often  very  deep,  in  which  the  body  was  placed  in 
a  sitting  posture.  Another  curious  pattern  is  a  huge  flask-shaped  coffin, 
bulging  towards  the  oval  base,  in  which  the  body  lay  on  the  back  with  raised 
knees,  Mittheilungen  der  Deutschen  Orientalischen  Gesellschaft,  36  p.  13.  For 
recent  finds  of  variously  shaped  coffins  see  MDOG  17,  4  ff.;  20,  24;  22,  22 
and  especially  27,  20  ff.  Scheil's  resume  of  this  matter  as  far  as  concerns 
Sippar  is  of  great  importance,  Une  Saison  de  Feuilles  a  Sippar,  pp.  55  ff. 

t  Descriptions  and  drawings  in  MDOG  21,  36;  25,  48;  25,  55;  27,  29; 
31,  18;  36,  23. 

t  Ibid.,  31,  10  f. 

§  Hilprecht,  1.  c,  456  ff. 

II  These  two  fire  necropolises,  whose  ruins  now  bear  the  names  of  Surghul 
and  El-Hibba,  are  fully  described  by  Koldewey  in  the  Zeitschrift  fiir  Assyri- 
ologie,  ii,  403-30. 


144  BABYLONIAN   ESCHATOLOGY 

by  burning  a  huge  pile  of  wood  above  this  clay  covering.  In 
case  this  process  reduced  the  body  to  ashes  the  remains  were 
placed  in  an  urn  and  buried  in  the  family  plot.  If  the  process 
did  not  reduce  the  body  to  ashes,  the  casing  remained  the  tomb.* 
Brick  vaults!  were  often  constructed  to  contain  the  funeral  urns 
and  last  remains,  the  excavators  found  large  rectangular  struct- 
ures containing  large  numbers  of  these  rooms,  whose  pavements 
were  drained  by  sewers,  descending  to  the  water  level.  J 

Undoubtedly  the  peoples  of  ancient  times  buried  their  dead  in 
their  temple  courts,  a  practice  fully  established  by  the  remains 
of  the  lowest  strata  of  Nippur.  Andrae  found  a  vault  at  the  very 
foot  of  the  stage- tower  at  Assur.§  The  desire  to  have  a  last 
resting-place  in  such  consecrated  soil  is  one  universal  in  the 
human  race  and  is  abandoned  only  for  practical  reasons.  At  Ur 
certain  parts  of  the  city  seem  to  have  been  reserved  for  ceme- 
teries. In  other  parts  of  Babylonia,  whole  districts,  including 
large  cities,  buried  in  one  vast  city  of  the  dead,  the  local  ne- 
cropolis. 

Although  the  ancient  Sumerians,  whose  beliefs  were  trans- 
mitted to  the  Semites,  conceived  of  an  immediate  separation  of 
body  and  soul  at  mortal  dissolution,  the  latter  passing  at  once  to 
Arallu,  the  land  of  the  dead,  yet  the  soul  or  edimmu  maintained 
a  lively  interest  in  the  body  which  it  had  left  behind.  ||     In  fact 

*  Jastrow  refused  to  accept  an  early  date  for  the  ruins  of  these  two  sites, 
and  speaks  of  Koldewey's  explanation  as  unacceptable,  but  the  trend  of 
recent  archaeology  is  in  favour  of  cremation  at  an  early  date,  which  custom 
seems  to  have  existed  in  all  periods. 

t  Called  by  Koldewey  "  Totenhduser." 

J  The  two  necropolises,  Fara  and  Ahu-Hatah,  located  between  Nippur 
and  Lagash,  and  hence  in  the  centre  of  a  most  densely  populated  district, 
contained  no  traces  of  cremation  whatsoever.  We  must  therefore  infer  that 
customs  differed  in  the  various  communities.  For  traces  of  cremation  at 
Babylon,  see  MDOG  36,  12;  38,  13,  at  a  depth  of  twenty  feet. 

§  Ihid.,  25,  55.  Hommel  and  Hilprecht  infer  that  the  stage-towers  are 
really  tombs  of  gods  of  vegetation,  more  particularly  of  Samas,  the  sun-god, 
who  is  supposed  to  dwell  in  the  nether  world  each  year;  see  Hilprecht  1.  c, 
459  ff.  This  explanation,  however,  rests  upon  an  improper  interpretation 
of  the  word  gigund,  which  when  applied  to  temples  denotes  a  room  in  the 
temple  made  in  imitation  of  the  land  of  the  dead  and  is  not  a  part  of  the 
stage-tower. 

II  One  might  suppose  that  cremation  would  lead  to  a  more  spiritual  con- 
ception and  detach  the  body  forever  from  the  .soul,  but  the  post-burial  rites 
and  ceremonies  seem  to  have  been  the  same  whether  the  body  was  buried  or 


BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY  145 

the  future  happiness  of  the  soul  depended  largely  upon  the  proper 
care  being  given  to  its  abandoned  body.  In  every  vault  water 
jars  and  bowls  of  food  were  placed  beside  the  body,  also  in  coffins 
of  every  description.  The  same  necessary  supplies  for  the  soul 
accompany  the  funeral  urns  and  remains  of  cremation.  A  prop- 
erly buried  person  must  take  with  him  to  the  grave  his  jewels, 
his  own  seal,  his  sword  and  whatsoever  implements  character- 
ized his  profession  in  the  land  of  the  living.  In  the  graves  of 
women  the  excavators  often  find  palettes,  paint-boxes  and  remains 
of  paint-brushes  for  coloring  the  eye-brows  and  eye-lashes.* 
The  soul,  therefore,  continues  its  earthly  existence  in  the  lower 
world,  eats  and  drinks,  and  preserves  its  identity.  Here  one 
finds  kings,  priests,  magicians,  and  legendary  heroes. f  The 
soul  whose  body  does  not  receive  provisions,  or  lies  unburied  on 
the  earth,  is  condemned  to  misery  until  its  remains  receive  proper 
burial. 

I  come  now  to  the  principal  matter  which  I  wish  to  discuss, 
namely  the  evidence  from  the  inscriptions  themselves.  The 
earliest  important  reference  to  burial  is  found  in  an  inscription 
of  Urukagina;  |  "When  a  dead  man  was  placed  in  his  coffin  his 
drink§  three  jars,  his  breads  eighty,  one  bed,  one  kid-.sa^r,  || 
as  funeral  offering  (  ?)  he  received."  Then  follows  the  interest- 
ing and  hitherto  unexplained  passage; — "30  ka  of  barley  the 
waller  \  received.  If  a  [dead]  **  man  were  placed  in  the  dark 
[chamber]  of  Eaff  his  drink  4  jars,  his  breads  240,  60  ka  of  barley, 
as  (his)  offering  (  ?)  he  received.    30  ka  of  barley  the  waller  re- 

cremated.  No  difference  in  beliefs  concerning  the  fate  of  the  soul  can  be 
inferred  from  the  different  burial  customs.  Dr.  Farnell  has  called  my  atten- 
tion to  his  own  views  on  this  point  in  the  Hibbert  Journal,  1909,  422. 

*  MDOG  17,  4  ff.;   for  the  same  relics  in  Egyptian  graves  see  ibid.,  30,  9. 

t  Jensen,  Mythen  und  Epen,  188. 

t  Circa  2900  B.  c;  a  baked  clay  cone  with  duplicate,  both  in  the  Louvre, 
published  in  Decouvertes,  partie  epigraphique,  LI,  f.;  translated  by  Thureau- 
Dangin,  Sumerische  und  Akkadische  Keilinsckriften,  46-54;  the  passage 
under  discussion  is  col.  ix,  26-34  on  cone  A,  =B,  viii,  32-38. 

§  The  word  employed,  kas,  means  a  kind  of  beer. 

II  A  special  kind  of  kid,  cf.  BM  14335  obv.  5;   RA  iii,  122,  1.,  14. 

\  Galu  dim-ma-ge,  "man  of  wailing." 

**  Text  of  B  is  illegible  here,  A  has  not  the  infix  for  dead,  but  the  infix  is 
probably  to  be  inserted. 

tt  gi-'^-  en^ki-ka-ka,  for  gig-'^-  en-ki-ka-ka,  evidently  a  poetical  phrase  for 
gig-unuygigunu,  "great  house  of  darkness,"  the  ordinary  word  for  vault. 


146  BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 

ceived,"  We  have  here  a  clear  distinction  between  an  ordinary- 
burial  in  a  sarcophagus*  and  the  more  stately  interment  in  a 
vault  with  corresponding  difference  in  the  amount  of  the  offering 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  soul  for  his  last  voyage.f  A  monu- 
ment of  the  same  period  contains  the  following  passage ; — "  In  the 
city  no  coffin  was  interred,  no  dead  were  buried;  the  psalmist 
raised  his  dirge,  wailing  arose  not,  the  woman  waller  uttered 
not  wailing  (sic!)."  J 

The  passages  cited  prove  that  the  drink-offering  placed  beside 
the  dead  in  the  ancient  period  was  not  water  but  a  kind  of  beer.§ 
As  a  matter  of  fact  water  did  not  form  the  element  of  the  offerings 
in  the  tomb,  nor  is  water  mentioned  among  the  offerings  regu- 
larly made  by  the  living  at  the  tombs  of  their  ancestors.  Only 
in  a  later  period  arose  the  idea  that  water  was  necessary  to  the 
existence  of  the  soul.  The  original  word  for  offerings  made  for 
the  souls  of  the  dead  is  anag  or  more  fully  kianag.  It  has  been 
commonly  supposed  that  a?ia^,  which  was  borrowed  by  the  Semites 
as  anakku,  means  "to  pour  out  water,"  but  there  is  absolutely 
no  evidence  to  support  this  interpretation.  ||  Anag  means,  in 
practice,  any  offering  made  for  the  repose  of  the  dead.  The  liv- 
ing not  only  buried  their  dead  according  to  the  customs  dic- 
tated by  their  eschatological  ideas,  but  they  continued  to  make 
regular  offerings  at  their  tombs  or  graves.  The  relation  be- 
tween a  man  and  his  ancestors  was  not  severed  at  the  grave. 
A  decent  burial  constituted  only  the  necessary  beginning  of  a 
happy  existence  in  Arallu;  the  soul's  happy  existence  could  not 
continue  unless  its  kinsmen  performed  for  it  the  necessary  rites. 
Inasmuch  as  those  souls  whose  bodies  failed  to  receive  proper 
burial  or  the  proper  continuance  of  attention  by  their  kinsmen, 
rose  from  hell  to  torment  mankind  and  especially  their  own 
negligent  descendants,  the  offerings  for  the  repose  of  the  souls 

*  kimahhu. 

t  The  passage  continues  with  a  list  of  allowances  for  other  persons,  viz., 
the  priestess,  the  galu  ziga,  the  psalmist,  and  a  large  allowance  for  a  meal. 
If  this  part  of  the  passage  belongs  to  the  description  of  the  burial,  then  we 
have  here  the  long  desired  evidence  of  a  funeral  meal,  the  parentalia.  I  am 
doubtful  about  this  matter  and  hesitate  to  make  far  reaching  conclusions  on 
the  basis  of  this  passage. 

J  Gudea,  Statue  B,  v,  1-4.  §  kas  =  Slkaru. 

II  The  root  nag  means  "to  drink,"  and  anag,  a  drink  offering.  The  prefix  a 
is  the  simple  vowel  augment  and  has  no  reference  to  water. 


BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY  147 

formed  an  important  part  of  Sumerian  and  Babylonian  religious 
practice.  We  shall  see  from  the  numerous  ancient  sources  now 
at  our  disposal  that  a  general  offering  was  provided  for,  in  the 
official  religion,  to  appease  the  souls  of  the  dead.  We  have 
here  truly  the  primitive  conception  of  a  feast  of  all  souls.  I 
translate  first  the  sources  for  private  ancestral  commemoration 
and  secondly  those  which  concern  a  general  offering  for  the  repose 
of  all  souls.* 

OBV. 

Col.  i. — One  she  kid — unweaned.  Col.  ii. — of  Enlitarzi 

4  male  kidsf — weaned,  and  of  Dudu 

20  male  kids  the  priest, 

set  aside  for  the  mortuary  at    the    festival    of    Bau. 

sacrifices  Eniggal 
REV. 

Col.  i. — the  prefect  Col.  ii. — wife  of  Lugalanda, 

has  assigned  priest  king  of 

to  the  shepherd  Lagash. 

Lugalsagga.  3d  year.J 
[Property  of]  Baranamtara 

Lugalanda  son  of  Enlitarzi  and  his  successor  to  the  throne  of 
Lagash,  here  through  his  wife  provides  for  the  offerings  to  be  made 
at  the  tombs  of  his  father  and  of  a  former  high-priest.  A  small 
tablet  of  the  same  period  has  the  notice; — "One  male  sheep 
has  been  slain  for  the  mortuary  sacrifice  of  Enlitarzi.  The 
sheep  consumed  was  of  his  own  estate."§  A  list  of  offerings 
for  each  of  the  eight  days  of  the  feast  of  the  goddess  Nina 

*  I  have  avoided  the  use  of  the  term  "cult  of  the  dead,"  since  a  cult  implies 
the  deification  of  the  being  worshipped.  The  Sumerians  did  deify  their  nders, 
built  temples  to  them  and  even  identified  them  with  planets,  but  the  deifica- 
tion of  rulers  has  little  relation  to  the  problems  under  discussion.  We  have 
in  Babylonia  only  a  tendency  to  an  ancestral  cult  system,  but  the  Sumerian 
religion  in  the  earliest  period  had  already  become  too  lofty  in  its  conceptions 
of  divinity  to  descend  to  the  level  of  ancestry  worship. 

^  mas  should  always  be  translated  "male  kid,"  Semitic  Idlu  and  sabitu, 
although  the  latter  form  is  feminine.  The  ordinary  translation  "gazelle  " 
for  sabitu  should  be  reserved  for  uniku. 

X  Nikolski,  Documents  of  the  Most  Ancient  Epoch,  Collection  LikhatchefiF, 
No.  195. 

§  Literally,  "of  his  own  name."  Allotte  de  la  Fuye,  Documents  Prisargo- 
niques  no.  56. 


148  BABYLONIAN   ESCHATOLOGY 

at  Lagash  contains  the  following  entry  among  others  for  the 
second  day: 

"  120  ka*  of  meal,  60  ka  of  servant's  beer,  60  ka  of  black  beer, 
60  (  ?)  ka  of  oil,  one  ka  of  dates,  one  ka  of  wine  .  .  .,  one  basket  (  ?) 
of  fish,  one  male  kid,  have  been  offered  as  the  mortuary  sacrifice 
of  the  king  of  Lagash."  f 

The  tablet  from  which  I  have  taken  this  extract  is  dated  in 
the  3d  year  of  Lugalanda,  in  whose  time  the  rulers  of  Lagash 
had  long  ceased  to  use  the  title  of  "king."  The  natural  infer- 
ence would  be  that  regular  offerings  were  maintained  for  the 
souls  of  the  rulers  who  founded  the  dynasty  and  who  called  them- 
selves kings. 

Tablets  containing  lists  of  regular  offerings  for  the  souls  of 
ordinary  men  and  women  are  not  wanting.  In  this  regard  the 
most  interesting  document  is  a  large  tablet  in  the  British  Museum, 
containing  a  list  of  temple  (  ?)  receipts  and  expenditures,  among 
which  occur  the  following  notices; — "270  ka  (of  barley)  the  regu- 
lar religious  tax  X  for  the  mortuary  sacrifice  §  of  the  mother  of  the 
priestess,  barley  from  the  field  of  the  goddess  Ningul";||  "300 
female  slaves  for  one  day,  the  overseer  being  Ur-''  Lama  son 
of  Uda,  108  female  slaves  for  one  day  [the  overseer  being] 
Ikkus  son  of  Lala,  paid  from  the  regular  religious  tax  for  the 
mortuary  sacrifice  of  Gin-'''  Bau  the  priestess  and  of  the  father 
of  the  priestess."^  Here  the  state  provides  for  the  cults  of 
the  father  and  mother  of  a  priestess,  as  well  as  for  that  of  the 
priestess**  herself.  I  use  the  term  "cult"  for  the  subject  mat- 
ter of  this  inscription,  for  we  have  here  a  real  legal  institution. 
Evidently  the  state  provided  a  regular  income  for  the  vault  of 

*  The  ka  was  a  small  vessel  containing  a  little  less  than  half  a  litre. 

t  Ibid.,  no.  53  obv.  ii,  5-11.  J  satukku. 

§  Here  I  translate  ki-a-nag  by  "mortuary  sacrifice." 

II  BM  14308  obv.  ii,  12-14.  ^  Ibid.;   rev.  iii,  1-12. 

**  nin-dingir-ra,  cf.  Urukagina,  Cone  A  col.  x,  12,  and  Jensen,  op.  cit. 
439.  Offerings  for  the  ki-a-nag  of  the  father  of  the  priestess  also  in  a  frag- 
mentary tablet  of  the  same  size,  Reisner,  Temple-Urkunden,  no.  128,  obv.  iii.; 
monthly  offerings  for  the  soul  of  the  mother  of  the  priestess  are  registered  on 
a  fragment,  ibid.,  no.  112;  obv.  col.  i  has  part  of  the  offering  for  the  2nd. 
month,  col.  ii  mentions  allowances  of  beer  for  the  ki-a-nag  of  the  sabru  (a  re- 
ligious office)  and  of  the  mother  of  the  priestess  [4th  month],  col.  iii  has  the 
end  of  an  entry  for  the  ki-a-nag  of  the  5th  month,  followed  by  similar  allow- 
ances for  the  6th  month. 


BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY  149 

a  family  whose  services  in  the  official  religion  had  been  great. 
We  find,  therefore,  considerable  property  actually  accruing  to 
the  credit  of  this  fund,  which  the  authorities  drew  upon  to  pay 
the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  temple.* 

Another  tablet  furnishes  even  more  interesting  evidence  con- 
cerning the  part  which  respect  for  the  souls  of  the  great  played 
in  the  official  religion  :| 

Obv:  "60  servants  of  the  prefect  Enusimma,  60  servants  of 
the  prefect  Galu-**  Ningirsu,  (both  are  elders)  ;|  23  servants  of 
the  house  of  the  messengers  (whose  overseer  is  Galu-''  Bau), 
of  the  prefect  Ursagga:  143  servants.  Of  these,  15  for  the  zi- 
giir  §  of  the  temple  Uz-ga,  one  for  the  mortuary  sacrifices  of 
Ma-**  Engur,||  one  for  the  mortuary  sacrifices  of  the  deified 
Dungi,  6  for  the  slaughter-house — Sagdana,  2  for  the  slaughter- 
house of  Nippur."  Tf  The  tablet  continues  with  a  long  list  of 
groups  of  servants  who  served  in  various  capacities. 

The  sources  do  not  always  make  clear  whether  the  ofi'erings 
were  burnt,  or  whether  they  were  consumed  as  a  family  meal  in 
memory  of  the  dead.  The  jars  and  bowls  placed  with  the  body 
provided  for  the  needs  of  the  soul  for  the  time  being.  Inasmuch 
as  the  vaults  were  found  securely  bricked  up,  we  infer  that  they 
were  never  entered  again.     The  offerings  in  question  can,  there- 

*  Other  instances,  in  which  the  ki-a-nag  is  represented  as  possessing  prop- 
erty, occur:  Nikolski  no.  236,  in  a  list  of  skins  of  goats  belonging  to  differ- 
ent persons,  the  last  entry  is  six  skins  of  little  kids,  property  of  the  ki-a-nag. 

t  BM  17775  published  in  Cuneiform  Texts  of  the  British  Museum,  vol. 
vii,  pi.  47.     Cf.  RTC  no.  46,  obv.  II. 

I  ab-dS-dS-me:  the  ordinary  meaning  of  ab  is  stbu  "old  man,  councillor, 
judge;"  cf.  amelu  ab  =  irrisu  K.  50,  I  24.  With  this  passage  cf.  14595,  "2 
royal  gur  of  barley  Ur-Bau  has  received  from  Ur-"*  Enlil,  as  provision  for  the 
servants  of  the  two  elders  {sag-gal  erin  ds-ds-me).  In  Thureau-Dangin, 
Recueil  de  Tablettes  ChalcUennes,  112,  a  man  has  the  title  ah  of  the  king.  Al- 
though the  ab  appears  to  have  been  a  councillor  concerned  with  secular 
matters,  yet  he  belonged  to  the  temple  staff;  BM  12232  obv.  iii,  18,  Lukani 
is  the  ah  of  the  goddess  Ninmarki;  the  ah  of  Tammuz,  of  Nini,  etc.,  also 
occurs;  also  the  abha  of  god,  simply,  in  Nikolski  19,  obv.  iii,  7.  For  the 
ah-ha  in  later  t^mes  see  Zeitlin,  Style  Administratif,  p.  42. 

§  The  word  is  written  ZI-IL;  zi-giir  may  be  Semitic  for  zigurat,  stage- 
tower.     Cf.  Reisner  TU  no.  173,  obv.  6. 

II  /.  e.,  one  servant  employed  to  do  menial  service  in  connection  with  rites 
for  the  soul  of  Ma-''  Engur. 

^  Sic  1  The  tablet  comes  from  Lagash.  The  two  buildings  (e-gud-gaz) 
mentioned  were  used  for  slaughtering  victims  for  the  temples.  A  house  of 
the  same  kind  was  built  outside  the  north  wall  of  Babylon. 


150  BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 

fore,  have  no  reference  to  the  food  placed  in  the  grave.  For- 
tunately at  least  one  text  is  more  definite  on  this  point,  proving 
that  we  are  actually  dealing  with  a  ceremony  of  eating  a  meal  in 
memory  of  the  dead. 

"  One  sheep  for  the  priest-king,  one  kid  for  the  priest  of  the 
goddess  Nina,  one  lamb  and  one  kid  for  the  priest  of  the  goddess 
Ninmarki,  have  been  eaten  in  the  assembly  (?)*.  One  sheep 
for  the  priest-king,  one  sheep  for  the  chief  scribe,  in  the  month 
gis-dim-ka-na-\  at  the  celebration  of  the  mortuary  sacrifice  have 
been  eaten,"  { 

Thus  we  see  that  the  soul  was  nourished  in  Aralu  by  the  me- 
morial meals  consumed  in  his  memory  by  his  kinsmen  on  earth 
or  in  case  of  rulers,  priests  and  important  persons  the  memorial 
meal  formed  part  of  the  oflBcial  religion.  Such  memorial  meals 
would  naturally  take  on  a  more  sacramental  character  when  the 
ruler  was  deified.  Not  only  was  he  then  raised  to  the  rank  of  a 
god,  and  worshipped  and  sacrificed  to,  as  a  god,  but  the  ordinary 
mortuary  sacrifice  in  which  his  human  nature  persisted  was  main- 
tained.§  We  have  already  found  one  instance  of  the  mortuary 
rites  of  the  deified  Dungi  in  the  last  inscription.  A  similar  ref- 
erence to  the  same  deified  ruler  occurs  on  a  tablet  in  Berlin.||  A 
large  fragment  of  the  same  collection  has  the  following  entry; 
"One  male  kid,  5  ka  of  servant's  meal,^  5  shekel-weight  of 
butter,  2  large  wicker  jars  [of  oil  of  dates  ?]**  for  the  mortuary 
sacrifice  to  Gudea  the  king."tt  Here  Gudea  has  not  yet  been 
deified. 

The  evidence  for  a  more  general  application  of  the  memorial 
feast  in  memory  of  all  the  souls  who  had  passed  to  Aralu  can- 

*  giln-a  ba-kur.  Some  doubt  exists  about  the  word  for  assembly  (jmhru), 
but  the  word  used  for  "  eat  "  is  certain. 

t  Otherwise  unknown  as  the  name  of  a  month. 

X  Allotte  de  la  Fuye,  op.  cit.  no.  80.  Naturally  the  participants  burnt  a 
portion  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  dead. 

§  See  Scheil's  article  on  the  Culte  de  Gvdea  in  Maspero's  Recueil  de  Travaux, 
vol.  xviii. 

II  Reisner,  TU.,  no.  173,  obv.  7,  "a  servant  for  the  ki-a-nag  of  the  divine 
Dungi." 

^  zid-kal,  an  inferior  quality  of  meal. 

**  id  su-lum,  cf.  same  column  six  lines  below,  and  BM  17775,  obv.,  17. 

tt  Reisner,  TU.,  no.  128,  col.  ix.  Cf.  the  offerings  to  the  ki-a-nag  of  the 
kings,  RTC  316,  rev.,  1. 


BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY  151 

not  be  so  abundantly  documented  but  is  none  the  less  certain. 
A  large  record  of  oiYerings  for  the  six  days  of  the  festival  of  the 
goddess  Nina  provides  meal,  beer,  oil,  dates,  wine  and  fish  for 
the  mortuary  sacrifice  of  Lagash,  that  is,  for  the  feast  of  "all 
souls"  for  that  city.  This  took  place  on  the  first  day  of  the  festi- 
val. Another  entry  for  the  third  day  enumerates  similar  offer- 
ings for  the  mortuary  sacrifice  of  Nind-ki,  a  section  of  the  same 
city.*  Another  tablet,  according  to  which  the  same  festival 
lasted  only  four  days,  fixes  the  feasts  of  all  souls  for  both  Sirpurla 
(Lagash)  and  Niim  for  the  first  day.f 

It  need  not  be  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  in  an  account  of 
the  monthly  tax  paid  by  the  wealthy  consort  of  one  of  the  priest- 
kings  of  Lagash,  an  entry  for  the  ki-a-nag,%  or  in  a  list  of  monthly 
allowances  for  different  temple  expenses  and  offerings,  a  large 
quantity  of  wheat  given  for  the  ki-a-nag  of  a  certain  Ningirsu- 
urmu,§  in  the  9th  year  of  Lugalanda,  and  another  monthly 
account  in  the  4th  year  of  the  same  ruler  provides  a  smaller 
quantity  of  wheat  for  the  same  purpose. || 

When  Gudea,  the  well-known  priest-king  of  Lagash,  placed 
his  own  statue  in  the  temple  of  Ningirsu  before  that  god,  among 
the  prayers  which  he  inscribed  upon  it  is  the  following:  "May  it 
receive  mortuary  sacrifice. "Tf  The  same  inscription  begins  with 
an  account  of  the  regular  (monthly)**  offerings  to  be  offered  to 
his  statue  during  his  lifetime.  The  two  rites  must,  however, 
not  be  confused.  The  worship  offered  to  the  statue  of  a  living 
monarch  proves  that  the  Sumerians  deified  their  rulers  even  in 
their  own  lifetime.ff  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  memorial 
monthly  meal  was  eaten  in  the  presence  of  the  statue  of  the  de- 

*  See  Nikolski,  no.  23  obv.,  cols,  i  and  ix.  A  feast  of  all  souls  at  the 
festival  of  Bau,  RTC  no.  60. 

t  H.  de  Genouillac,  Tablettes  Sumeriennes  Archaiques,  no.  1,  obv.,  vii. 

j  Th.-Dangin,  RTC  51  obv,  v,  end.  The  text  is  broken  away  so  that 
either  the  name  of  the  city  or  the  name  of  a  person  may  have  followed.  See 
also  no.  47,  obv.,  ii,  7. 

§  Ibid.,  no.  55.  ||  Ibid.,  no.  66,  obv.,  ii. 

^  ki-a-nag-e  ga-ba-ttlm.  Statue  B.  7,  55. 

**  satukku  which  seems  to  have  been  monthly  and  in  case  of  Gudea  (at  least) 
offered  to  him  after  his  death  on  the  15th  or  day  after  the  full  moon,  see 
Scheil  1.  c. 

ft  A  practice  known  from  many  other  sources.  See  Hilprecht,  Earliest 
Version  of  the  Flood  Story,  24-29.  Dungi  bears  the  title  of  "god"  Dungi 
in  his  own  reign,  CT  ix,  44  col.,  ii,  18. 


152  BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 

parted,  if  the  person  in  question  was  important  enough  to  be 
honoured  with  a  statue.*  This  prayer  of  Gudea  inscribed  in 
classic  Sumerian  upon  his  statue  appears  to  have  been  worked 
into  a  hymn  to  Ningirsu,  of  which  we  have  a  late  fragmentary 
copy  supplied  with  a  Semitic  translation.  "As  for  the  king 
whose  being t  has  been  created|  unto  a  life  of  far-away  days, 
whose  statue  if  one  fashion  unto  eternal  days  and  [bring]  it 
into  Eninnu,  the  temple  of  gladness,  the  mortuary  sacrifice  § 
...  as  is  fitting  may  he  receive. "||  Another  passage  of  great 
importance  in  this  connection,  in  which  the  primitive  force  of 
the  word  ki-a-nag  seems  evident,  is  the  following:  "The  ki-a- 
7iag  of  the  gods  where  the  mortuary  sacrifice  is  made,^  in  the 
temple  Ninnu,  the  tarkullu,  he  fixed."  This  is  not  the  only 
passage  in  which  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  called  "gods";  the 
demons,  good  and  bad,  were  originally  souls  which  arose  out  of 
hell  at  the  instance  of  the  wizard,  or  sent  by  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness. This  weird  conception  which  peopled  Aralu  with  spirits 
who  were  capable  of  interfering  with  the  affairs  of  men  and  upon 
whose  good  will  the  happiness  of  the  living  largely  depended 
is  illustrated  by  a  passage  from  a  late  incantation,  "The  bound 
gods  arise  from  hell,  the  evil  ghouls  arise  from  hell,  for  the 
breaking  of  bread  and  the  pouring  out  of  water."  **  In  an- 
other passage  Gudea  refers  to  fallen  heroes  in  affectionate  terms: 

*  Offerings  to  statues  occur  in  RTC  no.  247,  obv.,  i,  12,  and  TSA,  no.  35, 
obv.,  V. 

t  mu  =  sumu,  literally  "name."  %  ilakkanu,  for  iUakkanu. 

§  ki-a-nag  is  translated  by  asar  .  .  .  .  ,  the  decisive  word  being  unfortu- 
nately broken  away.  Assyriologists  have  inferred  from  this  passage  that 
ki-a-nag  refers  to  a  place,  i.  e.,  an  altar  or  a  chapel  of  some,  sort  where  water 
was  poured  out  to  the  shades  of  the  dead.  This  practice,  however,  [nak  me] 
belongs  to  the  late  period  only.  The  Sumerian  ki  of  course  means  place 
[asm]  and  a-nag  should  mean  "to  give  to  drink  water."  But  the  late  term 
kisig  which  replaced  the  earlier  ki-a-nag  means  kasapu  sa  kispi,  "  breaking  of 
bread  for  the  dead,"  and  in  no  way  is  it  used  of  a  place.  Both  forms,  however, 
evidently  mean  the  place  where  the  parentalia  was  performed,  but  in  actual 
usage  only  the  ritual  itself  is  intended.  If  a-nag  actually  means  to  pour  out 
water  to  the  dead,  it  is  nowhere  so  explained,  for  nak  me  of  the  later  paren- 
talia is  translated  into  Sumerian  by  a-nisag,  CT,  xvii,  37,  9.  See  below,  note 
on  a-nag.  ||  IV  R  13a,  22-29. 

If  ki-a-nag  dingir-ri-ka  a  im-nag-nag-a;  here  a-nag  is  a  compound  in  which 
a  does  not  have  the  meaning  "water,"  but  is  a  vowel  augment  as  in  a-ru, 
a-kid,  a-sil,  a-kesda,  see  Babyloniaca,  ii,  96. 

**  CT  xvii,  37,  1-10. 


BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY  153 

*'The  dead  heroes  ...  to  them  I  administered  at  the  place  of 
mortuary  sacrifice."* 

The  material  utilized  in  the  foregoing  discussion  is  entirely 
from  ancient  Sumerian  sources  and  must  form  the  basis  for  our 
study  of  the  earliest  ideas  concerning  eschatology.  Our  infer- 
ences may  not  be  altogether  certain,  yet  we  may  perhaps  as- 
sume that  the  parentalia  or  solemn  meal  in  memory  of  the  dead 
formed  the  essential  act  necessary  for  the  repose  of  the  soul. 
The  general  parentalia  or  meal  for  all  souls  took  place  in  most 
cases  on  the  first,  second  or  third  days  of  the  great  feasts  of  Nina 
and  Bau,  i.  e.,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  and  seventh  months. 
No  importance  should  be  attached  to  this  fact,  for  the  parentalia 
seems  to  have  recurred  every  month  and  it  is  only  because  we 
have  so  much  documentary  evidence  for  the  two  festivals  men- 
tioned that  the  parentalia  for  these  months  is  so  often  found. 

When  we  reach  the  Semitic  period  of  the  first  dynasty  we  find 
a  new  expression  which  seems  to  have  entirely  replaced  the  ancient 
term  ki-a-nag  "mortuary  sacrifice"  or  more  strictly,  "place  for 
mortuary  sacrifice,"!  namely  ki-sig  which  the  Semitic  scribes 
interpreted  by  "breaking  of  bread."  The  earliest  passage  is  a 
pure  Sumerian  text;t  "food  of  the  parentalia  §  in  its  place  I 
eat";  the  goddess  Ininni,  Semitic  Itsar-Astoreth,  uses  this  phrase 

*  Gudea,  Cyl.  A,  26,  15  f.,  ur-sag  dig-ga-ni-me  .  .  .  KA-bi  ki-a-nag-Su  miir- 
gar.  KA-gar  ordinarily  means,  "conduct  a  suit,"  in  a  hostile  sense,  hence, 
"  complaint";  but  cf.  KA-gar  Sag-ga-a  "good  intention,"  Cyl.  A,  20,  3.  Our 
passage  means  literally,  "their  affair  1  plead,"  and  may  include  wailing. 

t  The  notion  of  mortuary  or  memorial  for  the  dead  is  not  inherent  in  the 
etymology  of  either  of  these  words  but  they  are,  in  fact,  used  only  in  this 
sense.  The  Sumerian  ki-sig  is  translated  by  kispa  kasapu.  The  fundamental 
notion  is  "to  break  bread  together,"  exactly  equivalent  to  the  N.T.  Greek 
ro  dpTov  K\dv.  In  actual  usage  only  the  form  ku^apa  kasapu  occurs  for  eat- 
ing in  common,  whereas  the  form  kispa  kasapu  is  reserved  for  the  paren- 
talia. For  the  primitive  idea,  cf.  Id  kusapi  tdkal,  "thou  eatest  not  broken 
bread,"  Harper,  Letters,  341,  9.  '  The  phrase  occurs  in  the  Gilgamis  Epic  xi, 
300,  ana  esrd  simdni  iksupu  kusapa,  "every  twenty  double  hours'  march  they 
broke  bread,"  followed  by,  "every  thirty  double  hours'  march  they  made  a 
night's  lodging."  [The  passage  has  been  universally  misunderstood];  see 
also  V.  col.  iii,  44.  kusapu  Id  ekuluni,  "they  ate  broken  bread,"  Harper,  Letters, 
no.  78,  11. 

X  CT  XV,  7,  23,  see  my  Sumerian  and  Babylonian  Psalms,  p.  10.  The  new 
term  kisig  may  be  due  nevertheless  to  Semitic  conceptions. 

§  So  I  translate  ki-sig  everywhere,  to  distinguish  it  from  ki-a-nag,  "  mortuary 
sacrifice."    Both  translations  are  only  a  vade  mecum. 


154  BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 

in  a  lamentation  over  her  city;  she  assists  at  the  public  feast  of 
the  breaking  of  bread  for  the  souls  who  perished  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  her  city.  The  lamentation  continues:  "  Of  the  stalls  their 
cattle  I  sacrifice."*  The  rite  now  consists  in  the  breaking  of 
bread  together  at  a  common  meal,  as  well  as  the  offering  of  a 
sacrifice.  The  ancient  ceremony  seems  to  have  been  a  sacrifice 
which  the  family  of  the  deceased  partook  of,  but  part  of  which 
was  burned  for  the  soul  in  Aralu,  the  so-called  Hebrew  "peace- 
offering,"  D^ti^.  Alongside  of  this  grew  up  a  more  spiritual 
ritual,  the  breaking  of  bread.  In  the  evolution  of  the  rite,  the  two 
practices  merged  into  one,  and  the  ancient  term  disappeared. 
We  now  find  the  term  kisig,  kispa  kasdpu,  "  breaking  of  bread," 
used  for  the  entire  ceremony,  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  separate 
the  ideas. t  The  word  kispu  soon  acquired  the  meaning  sacri- 
fice for  the  dead  and  in  the  Cassite  period  several  temple  rec- 
ords shew  that  the  official  religion  provided  for  the  public  par- 
entalia.J 

In  an  inscription  recently  discovered  at  Eski-Harran,  a  priest 
of  the  famous  temple  of  the  moon  god  in  Harran  affectionately 
refers  to  the  friends  whom  he  had  lost  in  the  course  of  a  long 
lifetime,  and  for  whom  he  had  performed  the  monthly  ceremony 
for  the  repose   of  the  dead.§     The  description  to  be  disengaged 

*tur  amar-bi  a-nag-an  me-en;  the  passage  was  not  understood  by  me  in 
SEP,  p.  11.     Notice  that  we  have  here  the  verb  anag. 

t  The  Babylonians  built  special  temples  for  the  parentalia,  probably  only 
for  the  general  sacrifices  to  the  dead  which  if  carried  out  regularly  would 
absolve  the  individual  families  from  these  burdens.  Reference  to  the  bit 
kisikki  at  Kes  occurs,  SBP  24,  74;  at  Adab  26,  6:  cf.  also,  214,  24.  Especially 
interesting  is  a  letter  of  the  Babylonian  king  Ammiditana  (2021-1985  b.  c.) 
in  Th.-Dangin's  Lettres  et  Contrats  no.  7.  "To  Summa-ilu.  son  of  Idin-Mar- 
duk  say : — thus  saith  Ammiditana:  Milk  and  butter  for  the  kisig  of  the 
month  Ab  are  lacking  iihhaSSem).  When  thou  readest  this  letter  may  thy 
overseer  take  30  cows  and  60  ka  of  butter  and  come  to  Babylon.  Until  the 
kisig  is  finished  let  him  supply  milk.    He  shall  not  delay  but  come  at  once." 

X  Clay,  Babylonian  Expedition  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  xiv,  pi.  60, 
43,  fourteen  animals  set  aside  for  the  kispu;  xv,  200,  i,  6,  in  a  list  of  grain 
offerings  to  the  gods,  20  ka  for  the  kispu  u  rimku,  "  sacrifice  to  the  dead  and 
libation."  Cf.  also  xv,  185,  i,  5;  here  the  sacrifice  took  place  in  the  bit  Hani, 
"temple  of  the  gods." 

§  Henri  Pognon,  Inscriptions  s6mitiques  de  la  Syrie,  Bowlder  of  Eski-Harran 
iii,  16,  "lambs,  wine,  etc.  ...  I  offered  unto  them  as  a  sacrifice  to  the 
dead,"  [kispi]  akassap  Sunuti.  The  word  for  "monthly"  is  partly  broken 
away. 


BABYLONIAN   ESCHATOLOGY  155 

from  the  fragmentary  inscription  clearly  applies  to  a  sacrifice 
of  which  the  priests  probably  partook.  The  monthly  cele- 
bration of  this  rite  is  made  certain  not  only  by  the  abundant  evi- 
dence from  the  period  but  by  an  entry  in  a  late  calendar  in  which 
the  ud  kisigga  appears  as  one  of  the  regular  monthly  feasts.* 

The  Babylonians  attributed  many  of  their  woes  to  the  spirits 
of  the  dead,  who,  not  receiving  their  due  respect  at  the  hands  of 
the  living,  rose  out  of  hell  to  torment  humanity.  Under  such 
circumstances  they  usually  appealed  to  the  gods  Ea,  Sama§  and 
Marduk.  One  interesting  ritual  directs  the  aflflicted  to  erect 
seven  altars  (?),  with  a  censer  for  each  and  to  sacrifice  seven 
lambs.  Then  he  must  offer  the  parentaliaf  to  seven  statues. 
According  to  Babylonian  theology  the  devils  were  seven  in  num- 
ber, whom  they  conceived  of  as  wicked  souls.  They  are  here 
represented  by  their  seven  statues  at  the  meal  which  mortals 
provide  to  appease  them.  Another  ritual  directs  the  persecuted 
man  to  place  a  seat  for  the  souls  of  his  ancestors  at  the  ritual- 
istic scene  and  to  offer  them  the  parentalia.J 

Only  in  the  late  Semitic  period  do  we  come  upon  the  practice 
of  pouring  out  water  for  the  soul  of  the  dead  in  connection  with 
the  memorial  meal,  the  so-called  ndk  me.§  Ashurbanipal  speaks 
of  this  institution  in  the  following  line:  "The  regulations ||  for 
the  parentalia  and  the  pouring  of  water  for  the  souls  of  the  kings 
who  preceded  me,  which  had  fallen  into  disuse,  I  organised."^ 
The  libation  of  water  for  the  dead  appears  first  in  the  Cassite 

*  K  6012,  1.  21,  in  PSBA  1904,  after  page  56. 

t  kispi  takasip-^uiiuti.     See  Zimmern,  RUualtafeln,  no.  49. 

X  Zimmern,  ibid.,  no.  52.  The  ordinary  word  for  "soul  "  is  edimmu,  less 
often  utukku,  and  both  are  Sumerian  loan-words.  The  seven  devils  usually 
bear  the  names,  asakku,  namtaru,  utukku,  alu,  edimmu,  gallu,  ilu  limnu.  They 
are  called  "the  offspring  of  hell,"  binut  Aralle,  IV  R.  1,  a  12. 

§  tiaku  has  the  root  meaning  "pour  "  but  soon  took  on  the  general  mean- 
ing "to  offer  as  a  sacrifice,"  and  might  be  applied  to  libations,  animals  or 
any  kind  of  sacrifice.  In  the  strict  sense  of  "pour,"  the  Sumerian  equivalent 
was  bal,  but  in  the  wider  sense  of  offering  any  kind  of  sacrifice  the  scribes 
translated  by  the  word  nisag,  correctly  written  DE  (Briinnow,  No.  6714), 
but  often  confused  with  MURU  (No.  6701).  When  either  sign  is  used  for 
naku,  or  the  noun  niku  the  phonetic  value  is  nisag.  ndk  in  the  phrase  ndk 
me  is  the  infinitive,  and  we  should  translate,  "giver  of  libation  of  water," 
unless  the  notion  of  a  person  is  indicated  by  amelu,  or  ia  otherwise  evident. 

II  adi. 

^  Lehmann,  &amahlum-ukin  H  rev.,  1. 


156  BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY 

period,  in  the  terrible  curse,  "May  god  deprive  him  of  an  heir 
and  a  giver  of  Hbation  of  water;"*  "May  god  cause  him  to  have 
neither  heir  nor  giver  of  Hbation  of  water;" f  "May  god  take 
away  heir  and  giver  of  libation  of  water."  | 

The  land  of  the  dead,  which  the  Babylonians  imagined  to  be 
a  vast  chamber  beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth,  was  ruled  by 
the  goddess  Ereskigal  §  whose  name  means  "  mistress  of  the  vast 
place."  An  interesting  myth  explains  how  this  goddess,  sister 
of  the  great  gods,  obtained  her  consort  Nergal.  She,  in  her  ca- 
pacity of  queen  of  the  dead,  could  not  leave  Aralu  to  attend  a 
feast  of  the  gods,  but  sent  her  messenger  Namtaru.  When  the 
messenger  arrived  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods  all  but  Nergal 
arose  to  salute  him.  Whereupon  by  the  consent  of  the  gods 
Ereskigal  summoned  Nergal  to  hell  for  punishment.  Nergal 
arrived  at  the  gates  ||  of  hell  and  was  announced  by  the  w^atch- 
man.  Admitted  into  the  presence  of  the  queen  he  violently 
threw  her  from  her  throne  and  spared  her  life  at  her  plea  that 
she  be  made  his  consort,  Nergal  thus  became  lord  of  Aralu. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  Eres-kigal  seems  to  have  been  the  original 
ruler  of  the  land  of  the  dead.  Nergal,  originally  the  winter  sun, 
was  supposed  to  dwell  in  Aralu  half  of  the  year  whence  his  char- 
acter as  lord  of  Aralu  and  the  pest  god  'par  excellence.*^  In  re- 
ligious literature  and  in  the  syllabars  Nergal  appears  without  a 
consort.**  His  principal  titles  are,  god  of  the  grave,  of  percep- 
tion f  f  of  judgement,tt  of  wrath,  of  gladness,  of  plague,  of  the 
street. §§ 

*  Inscribed  Memorial  Deed  of  Melisupak,  col.  vii,  9-11. 
t  l\S,  iv,  86,  19. 

I  Ihid.,  72,  iv,  20.  See  Hinke,  A  New  Boundary  Stone  of  Nebtichadrezzar  i, 
p.  291.  The  same  curse  is  frequently  used  and  the  references  often  referred 
to  in  popular  works;  see  Delitzsch,  Handworterbuch,  under  nakiL. 

§  In  ii,  59,  33  the  name  is  interpreted  by  iltu  Allatu,  which  scholars  have 
usually  regarded  as  the  Semitic  equivalent. 

II  Here  fourteen  gates  are  mentioned. 

^  For  this  legend  see  Jensen,  op.  cit.,  74-79. 

**  See  BoUenriicher,  Hymn-en  und  Gebete  an  Nergal;  also  Langdon,  Sumerian 
and  Babylonian  Psalms,  nos.  vii,  viii,  xxvii.  ft  i^u  Sa  ha-j.a-ti. 

J  J  sipti.  See  also  Langdon,  ibid.,  84,  4,  and  iv,  R,  24,  no.  1,  27-8.  This  title 
of  Nergal  is  the  only  real  evidence  we  have  for  supposing  that  souls  were 
examined  concerning  their  good  and  bad  deeds  while  on  earth. 

§§  CT.  xxiv,  41,  64-74.  Another  list  on  the  same  tablet,  11.  89-95,  where 
he  follows  the  grain  goddess  Nisaba,  has  the  titles,  god  of  lightning,  god  of 
purification,  god  of  Sutu,  god  of  the  mountain,  and  god  of  dwellings. 


BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY  157 

The  Babylonians  had  several  picturesque  names  for  the  land 
of  the  dead,  which  was  often  described  as  the  irsit  la  tdri,  "land 
of  no  return."*  The  ordinary  word  is  arallu  or  aralii,  a  Su- 
merian  word  which  means  "place  of  desolation. "f  The  scribes 
explained  the  word  with  other  fanciful  phrases — "mountain 
house  of  the  dead,"  "the  vast  city"; J  irkallu  "prison  house,"§ 
of  which  the  soul  of  Eabani  says  to  his  comrade  Gilgamish,  "  De- 
scend unto  me,  unto  the  house  of  darkness,  abode  of  the  god  of 
irhalla."  Another  term,  hit  ilii  Tammuz,  "  house  of  Tammuz,"  || 
arose  from  the  ancient  myth  concerning  this  god  who  abode  in 
hell  each  year  during  the  autumn  and  winter  season. 

The  descent  of  Istar  into  inferno  to  search  for  the  departed 
Tammuz  has  been  described  in  a  poem  of  remarkable  beauty 
and  it  is  from  this  poem,  which  has  been  exploited,  that  most  of 
the  popular  ideas  concerning  the  Babylonian  Hades  have  been 
taken.^  According  to  this  poem  Aralu  is  a  land  without  light, 
where  dust  is  the  only  food  and  solitude  reigns  supreme.  Seven 
gates  guard  the  descent  into  Aralu,  at  each  of  which  a  warder 
challenges  the  visitor.  In  the  interior  Ereskigal  holds  her  court, 
w^hich  consists  of  her  messenger  Namtaru,  chief  of  demons,  and 
the  Anunnaki,  servants  of  the  under  world.**  An  ancient 
Sumerian  text  mentions  several  demons  who  conduct  the  sister 
Tammuz  into  the  lower  world  in  quest  of  her  brother.  The 
scene  is  described  as  follows: 

"The  watchman,  the  graZ/w-ft  demon,  opponent  terrible. 
To  the  compassionate  Belit-seri  spoke, 
'Why  to  thy  brother,  the  lamented,  will  thou  enter? 
Why  to  Tammuz,  the  bewailed,  wilt  thou  enter  ? ' 
With  the  gallu  she  pursued  her  way  unto  him. 

*  For  this  rendering  of  kur-nu-gl,  see  Jensen,  op.  cit.,  80,  n.  2. 

t  Cf.  dra-li-a=karrnu,  "ruin,"  [Ethiopic  kamr]  ii,  35a,  44. 

j  ii,  R,  30d,  3-5. 

§  Sumerian  kesda,  v,  R,  16,  80,  with  which  compare  the  "mountain  house 
of  the  dead,"  the  kesda  azag,  CT,  xvi,  3,  95;  irkallu  also  in  Rm.  343,  obv.  15, 
between  the  words  irsitum  and  nakbu. 

II  BM  93063  in  CTxii,  23,  where  a  Hst  of  words  for  "under  world  "  may  be 
found,  among  them  kartnu,  "ruin,"  and  kabru,  "grave." 

H  iv  R,  31. 

**  One  text  mentions  GOO  Anunnaki,  SBH,  87,  35. 

tt  Oiie  of  the  seven  devils. 


158  BABYLONIAN   ESCHATOLOGY 

The  slayer  upon  the  route  advanced*  with  her. 

The  sudu  journeyed  with  her  unto  him. 

The  alu  f  journeyed  with  her  unto  him. 

Together  they  hastened,  together  they  pressed  forward.''^ 

We  possess  but  one  passage  in  which  a  soul  rises  from  hell 
to  describe  the  existence  of  the  dead.  Nergal  opens  the  earth 
and  allows  the  ghost  of  Eabani  to  ascend  and  reveal  the  horrors 
of  death  to  his  comrade  Gilgamish: 

"Speak,  O  my  comrade,  speak,  O  my  comrade, 
The  law  of  hell  which  thou  hast  seen,  speak." 
"  If  I  tell  thee  the  law  of  hell  §  which  I  have  seen, 
In  .  .  .  thou  shalt  sit,  weep. 
Truly  in  ...  I  sat,  truly  I  wept."  || 

So  runs  the  fragmentary  text  concerning  the  only  message 
which  man  has  brought  back  from  the  "  land  of  no  return." 

The  entrance  into  Aralu  was  located  in  the  far  west^  at  the 
place  where  the  inhabitants  of  Babylonia  saw  the  sun  descend 
into  the  nether  sea,  as  they  supposed.  I  translate  here  an  in- 
cantation against  restless  souls  who  have  w^andered  from  hell; 

*  Read  dib,  not  ba.  t  One  of  the  seven  devils. 

J  Langdon,  op.  cit.,  312,  22  ff. 

§  irsitu,  hell,  here  and  often.  ||  Jensen,  op.  cit.,  263. 

*if  Cf.  the  title  of  Nergal  '^"  mar-uru  =  ilu  Sa  suti.  CT  xxiv,  42,  91  f.  MAR-TU, 
the  ordinary  Sumerian  word  for  abubu,  "storm,"  "deluge,"  is  to  be  read 
mar-uru  when  it  has  this  sense.  [Not  to  be  confused  with  the  word  md-gur, 
"ship,"  ZA,  XX,  451.]  Although  mar-uru  is  the  form  used  in  classical  texts 
for  abubu  yet  the  form  a-md-uru  >  a-ma-ru  [K  3372  +  5241  obv.,  12  =  CT  xvii, 
37]  may  be  original.  Since  the  ancient  word  for  "quiver,"  iSpatu  was  e  mar- 
uru,  "dwelling  of  the  storm  "  and  the  primitive  notion  of  abubu  is  "flood  of 
light,"  "quiver  "  meant  really  "abode  of  the  shafts  of  light,"  mar-uru,  a-ma- 
uru,  a-ma-ru  [dialectic  md-uru  is  frequent]  "storm,"  and  "quiver  "  [e  mar-urii 
later  became  mar-uru  =  iSpatu]  is  evidently  a  pure  Sumerian  word.  Now 
MAR-TU  is  the  ordinary  writing  for  Amurru,  west-land,  the  land  of  the 
Amorites,  If  we  are  to  read  mar-uru  then  the  inference  must  be  made  that 
Amurru,  Amorite,  is  pure  Sumerian  meaning,  "land  of  storm,"  hence  west- 
land.  We  have  direct  evidence  for  reading  MAR-TU  as  mar-uru,  when  it 
means  West,  Amoria,  since  in  CT  xxiv,  40,  48,  Adad,  god  of  the  west-land, 
usually  written  "'"  MAR-TU,  is  explained  by  abubu.  The  reading  mar-tu 
for  West  is,  therefore,  definitely  excluded.  Sutu,  already  known  to  be  a 
Syrian  province  (iv  R,  38,  22  f.,  su-ri-ki  and  su-ti-um-ki)  is  here  written  with 
the  Sumerian  word  for  West,  more  especially  Amoria.  Nergal,  therefore,  is 
god  of  the  west-land,  i.e.,  Sutium. 


BABYLONIAN  ESCHATOLOGY  159 

it  not  only  contains  evidence  for  placing  the  entrance  to  hell 
in  the  west  but  is  one  of  the  most  useful  sources  for  studying 
Babylonian  conceptions  of  the  spiritual  world. 

"Mighty  sage  of  the  universe,  Marduk,  raging  one,  [who 

makest  glad]  *  Egurra 
O  Ea,  Shamash  and  ^larduk  come  to  my  aid. 
By  your  grace  may  I  conduct  my  life  rightly. 
O  Shamash  the  terrifying  ghost,  which  since  many  days, 
Behind  me  clings  and  cannot  be  loosed, 
Which  every  day  oppresses  me,  every  night  terrifies  me, 
Which  persecutes  ever  (?)t)  causes  the  hair  upon  me  to 

stand  on  end, J 
Which  makes  my  bosom  gasp  for  breath  (?)§  which  hunts 
my  eyes.ll 

Which  brings  woe  to  my  back  (?)  poisoning  my  flesh,  ^ 

Which  brings  woe  to  my  whole  body. 

Be  it  a  ghost  of  my  family  by  male  or  female  lineage,** 

Be  it  a  ghost  who  was  murdered. 

Be  it  a  wandering  ff  ghost — this  one  or  that  one, 

O  Shamash  before  thee  I  seek  him. 


*  Read  Sal-[ba-bu  mu-res],  cf.  BA  V,  347,  no.  xiii,  3. 

"[  ridusu  izzi-zu  or  uszi-zu;  literally,  "who  stands  in  pursuit."  ridusu<C. 
ridntsu;  for  ridMu  "succession,"  "following  after,"  cf.  Jensen  on  the  root 
rid-Q,,  "follow  after,"  in  Mythen  und  Epen,  317. 

X  See  Meissner,  Supplement,  under  ■""'n. 

§  puti-ia  ihissu.  The  information  on  the  root  hisu  in  the  lexicons  is  false. 
At  least  one  root  hisu,  "to  take  refuge,"  "to  conceal,"  seems  to  be  certain. 
Heb.  ^on.  Another  root,  "remove  from  the  way,"  in  Tiglathpileser  I,  col. 
iv,  67,  in  P  form  "take  for  oneself,"  Delitzsch,  AL*,  167,  and  cf.  Behems, 
Briefe,  p.  2,  also  Meissner,  Supplement  39.  I  have  ventured  to  cormect  the 
root  in  this  passage  with  Arabic  hasiya. 

II  IP  of  sddu,  ussanadu. 

^  iamamu,  "to  poison  (?),"  so  Meissner:  cf.  Sammu,  "drug,"  Kiichler, 
Medicine,  66,  Sera-Su  iiammamusu,  CT,  xxiii,  46,  26;  katd-su  sepd-iu  uSamma- 
mu-hi,  ibid.,  I.  27. 

**  eimmu  kimti-ia  u  salati-ia :  the  full  phrase  is  kimtu  nisutu  u  salatu.  This 
passage  proves  that  blood  relation  is  meant,  hence  the  interpretation,  "  house- 
hold," including  slaves  and  servants  does  not  come  into  the  discussion. 
Peiser  first  gave  the  interpxretation  accepted  here,  Keilinschriftliche  Bibliothek 
iv,  305,  followed  by  Daiches,  Altbabylonische  Rechtsurkunde,  40. 

tt  murtappidu;  cf.  Meissner,  Seltene  Assyrische  Ideogramme,  no.  2313,  where 
the  Sumerian  sag-du-du  is  explained  by  iabbitu  and  murtappidu.  For  Sapddu 
Krapadu,  cf.  Vorderasiatische  Schriftdenkmaler  i,  70,  col.  v,  12;  liStappud, 
"may  he  wander  about."     iabbitu,  therefore,  for  iappidu,  "wanderer." 


160  BABYLONIAN   ESCHATOLOGY 

Garments  for  his  wear,  shoes  for  his  feet, 

A  girdle  for  his  loins,  a  leather  bottle  of  water  for  his  drink, 

Meal  of  puklu-gTSim  I  grind  ( ?)  for  him  *,  food  for  his  jour- 
ney I  give  him  f. 

To  the  sunset  may  he  go. 

Unto  the  god  Ne-duh,  great  watchmen  of  hell  J,  I  entrust 
him. 

May  Neduh,  great  watchman  of  hell,  keep  strong  guard  over 
him. 

May  he  lay  hold  of  the  bar  of  their  gate  fastenings. "§ 

The  fundamental  concept  of  Babylonian  eschatology  is  the 
inseparableness  of  the  living  and  the  dead.  The  welfare  of 
the  living  depended  largely  upon  the  care  which  they  bestowed 
upon  their  departed  kinsmen.  Although  these  disappeared  from 
the  sight  of  men,  yet  their  souls  communed  with  them  at  the 
solemn  parentalia  in  the  temples,  or  at  their  graves.  Some  change 
of  ritual  may  have  taken  place,  but  they  found  no  higher  revela- 
tion of  the  whither  of  the  soul  than  this.  No  trace  of  a  resurrec- 
tion, no  promise  of  change  in  the  monotonous  and  silent  exist- 
ence in  hell.  The  emphasis  upon  the  intimate  interdependence 
of  the  living  and  the  dead  tended  to  mystery  in  religion,  to  social 
and  family  solidarity  in  politics.  Dread  of  offending  the  dead» 
whose  wrath  brought  upon  mankind  most  terrible  aflBiction, 
compelled  respect  for  justice  and  aided  powerfully  in  maintain- 
ing the  best  institutions  of  the  race. 

PHILOLOGICAL  NOTE  ON  "BREAKING  OF  BREAD** 

I  have  translated  the  root  kasdpu  by  "break,"  and  when  used  with  kusapu, 
or  kasapu,  by  "break  bread."  The  passages  cited  make  clear  that  we  have 
here  an  expression  for  eating  at  a  common  meal.  The  verb  is,  however,  not 
used  in  any  connection  except  with  kispu  in  the  arbitrary  sense  of  breaking 
bread  for  the  parentalia,  and  with  kusapu,  or  kasapu  of  an  ordinary  meal. 
The  evidence  for  this  root  meaning  rests  principally  upon  a  syllabar  published 
by  Hilprecht,  in  BE  xx,  pi.  14,  where  we  find: 

*  Read  kirn  pukli  e-iah-hi.  Cf.  Meissner,  SA  I,  689,  and  Hrozny  in  Wiener 
Zeitschrift,  xx,  102. 

t  The  last  four  lines  are  translated  by  Frank,  Babylonische  Beschworungs 
relief,  89,  n.  6. 

Xirsitu. 

§  King,  Magic  and  Sorcery,  no.  53. 


BABYLONIAN   ESCHATOLOGY  161 

[su]ku*  =  ku-ru-ma-tum,  "ground  food'* 
(pa-ad)  =  ka-sa^'puru 
[ditt6\     =  pussiisu 
[ku-]ur  =  saltu,  hostility. 

The  fact  to  be  disengaged  from  this  text  is  that  pussMsw  and  kasapu  are 
synonyms.  The  root  pasasu  means  "to  break,"  and  pussusu  probably  means 
"crumb,"  or  "biscuit  broken  from  a  large  layer  of  biscuits  baked  together." 
kasapu  has,  therefore,  a  similar  meaning. 

The  Greek  phrase  ^  /cXd^ts  toO  dprov,  ro  Aprov  kXcLv^  in  whatever  form  it 
may  occur  must  be  the  translation  of  some  Semitic  phrase  like  kusapa  iksupu. 
The  Hebrew  phrase  back  of  the  Greek  is  S!?^  o^?;  cf.  Je.  16^  "Not  shall 
they  break  bread  in  sorrow  to  comfort  him  because  of  the  dead";  the  Heb. 
on!?  if^s'  (rd.  on!?  for  s:?';')  is  translated  by  K\affdy  Apros.  Here  we  have  an 
exact  parallel  to  the  Babylonian  parentalia  and  the  passage  must  be  so  un- 
derstood. In  Is.  58^  "  Is  it  not  to  break  thy  bread  unto  the  hungry?"  we 
have  a  reference  to  an  ordinary  meal,  the  Babylonian  kusapa  iksupu.  The 
Greek  has  here  diddpvirTe  rbv  dprov.  La.  4*,  "Children  ask  for  bread  but  there 
is  none  to  break  (it)  unto  them,"  en*;  j^n  f  72;  Greek  o  buxKKQv.  The  Syriac 
version  uses  the  verb  ksa  in  each  case,  the  ordinary  word  for  breaking  bread 
in  the  Eucharist.  The  Targum  retains  the  verb  d-ic  for  Je.  and  Is.,  but  par- 
aphrases by  ii^y'iD^  "  one  who  reaches  bread  to,"  for  La.  4*.  The  Talmud  has 
a  cognate  construction  ^o^-\a  d-\d  exactly  parallel  to  Bab.  kusapa  iksupu: 
Rosh  haShanah29^,  rn-^Mih  nonD  din  diid^  n^,  "Not  does  a  man  break  bread 
to  guests  "  (unless  he  eats  with  them).  Cf.  also  none,  "  a  piece  of  bread,"  iden- 
tical in  meaning  with  Bab.  kusapu,  and  pussusu.  The  ordinary  Aramaic  word 
is  >'S2,  cf.  Berakhoth,  46^. 

1-I2D  niNi  px3  n^an  Sya,  "The  master  of  the  house  breaks  (bread)  and  the 
guest  blesses  it." 

We  have  here  a  widespread  Semitic  idiom  for  sharing  a  meal  with  relatives 
and  friends.  The  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  phrases  apply  to  the  parentalia 
as  well  as  to  an  ordinary  meal.  A  mysterious  spiritual  communion  already 
existed  in  this  ceremony  from  an  early  period  which  hastened  the  early 
Christian  conception  of  a  sacrament  in  connection  with  the  Agape.  [For  the 
Aramaic  references  on  the  phrase  "  breaking  of  bread"  I  have  had  the  assist- 
ance of  Professor  G.  A.  Cooke,  whose  abundant  knowledge  supplied  a  serious 
defect  in  tracing  the  history  of  the  institution.] 

Oxford,  May  10,  1910. 

*  See  Briinnow,  Classified  Lists,  No.  9922  ff. 


XIII 

SOME  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  COMMON  ARABIC 
SPEECH   OF  SYRIA  AND   PALESTINE 

By  Frederick  Jones  Bliss 

This  brief  paper  does  not,  of  course,  attempt  to  compete  with 
the  technical  studies  of  Count  Landberg,  Dr.  Spoer  and  others 
in  the  same  fields.  It  is  literally  a  word  "about"  the  subject, 
seeking  not  so  much  to  strike  its  centre  as  to  touch  on  certain 
matters  that  belong  to  its  penumbra.  The  term  "speech"  oc- 
curs in  the  title  advisedly,  for  pronunciation,  phrases,  and  even 
gestures,  or  worldless  speech  will  be  touched  upon.  First  of  all, 
however,  we  must  contrast  the  spoken  with  the  written  language. 
Such  a  contrast  is  common  to  all  tongues,  but  in  the  Arabic 
presents  some  unusual  features.  The  difference  between  the 
speech  of  the  New  York  tenements  and  the  language  of  the  edi- 
torial columns  of  the  "Sun"  may  be  conceded  for  the  sake  of 
argument  to  be  as  great  as  that  between  the  written  and  the  spoken 
Arabic  dialects,  but  the  editor  of  the  "Sun"  may  reasonably  be 
supposed  to  talk  at  home  in  the  same  general  style  in  which  he 
writes,  whereas  the  most  flowery  Arabic  rhetorician  whose  para- 
graphs would  bewilder  the  Fellah,  uses  in  his  family  and  with  his 
friends  the  language  of  the  Fellah,  or,  at  least,  the  common  dia- 
lect of  the  street.  Exceptions,  of  course,  may  be  found,  for 
there  are  pedants  everywhere.  Especially  the  initiated  among 
the  Druses  are  apt  to  affect  a  literary  style  in  their  ordinary  talk, 
but,  in  general,  given  a  certain  district,  the  spoken  language  of  the 
educated  and  of  the  uneducated  is  one.  What  would  be  incor- 
rect if  written  is  quite  correct  when  spoken.  Your  gramma- 
rian frankly  abandons  grammar  when  he  speaks,  except  in  mak- 
ing a  public  discourse.     The  spoken  language  is  called  "  da'rij " 

163 


164  THE   COMMON   ARABIC   SPEECH  OF  SYRIA. 

or  current,  the  literary  language  "na'hawy"  or  grammatical. 
Practically,  however,  there  is  a  tacitly-acknowledged  grammar 
governing  the  speech  of  any  district.  The  educated  Syrian, 
justly  proud  of  his  noble  inheritance  of  the  classical  tongue, 
often  shows  a  sensitive  reluctance  to  divulge  to  a  stranger  the 
vernacular  forms.  When  asked  for  a  verbal  translation  of  an 
ordinary  foreign  phrase  he  is  apt  to  give  the  literary  equivalent. 
With  the  uneducated,  on  the  other  hand,  a  contrary  tendency 
leads  them  to  attempt  a  horrible  imitation  of  the  speech  of  for- 
eigners, with  the  mistakes  distorted  and  exaggerated,  which  they 
firmly  believe  will  be  more  comprehensible  to  their  visitors  than 
the  real  thing.  I  have  talked  myself  hoarse  in  my  very  best 
vernacular  vainly  attempting  to  alter  this  presupposition.  An 
attempt  of  that  brilliant  Arabic  scholar,  Dr.  Post,  was  more 
effective.  When  a  patient  persisted  in  the  use  of  the  "Frangy" 
Arabic,  he  gravely  asked  him:  "Is  your  Excellency  then  the  son 
of  a  Turk  ?  You  do  not  appear  to  be  able  to  speak  Arabic  cor- 
rectly!" A  certain  analogy  is  found  in  the  celebrated  Italian 
manner  of  Mrs.  Plornish  in  "Little  Dorrit"  who  proudly  felt 
that  she  was  almost  addressing  the  unfortunate  Italian  in  his 
own  tongue  when  she  said  to  him,  for  example:  "Me  ope  you 
leg  well  soon  .  .  .  Peaka  Padrona!"* 

While  the  main  difference  between  the  spoken  and  the  written 
languages  is  shown  in  the  deterioration  and  mutilation  of  gram- 
matical forms,  there  are  also  interesting  differences  in  the  vo- 
cabulary. In  English,  such  words  of  the  common  speech,  as  are 
not  ordinarily  written,  usually  fall  under  the  category  of  slang, 
such  as  "skedaddle."  Now  the  common  Arabic  has  its  slang, 
often  local,  such  as  the  word  "ha'lamy"  used  in  Jerusalem  to 
signify  "  humbug,"  though  not  generally  understood  in  any  other 
part  of  Syria  where  I  have  quoted  it;  but  the  common  language 
is  also  characterized  by  some  perfectly  normal  roots,  universally 
used  to  describe  simple  and  ordinary  actions,  that  do  not  appear, 

*  (1)  Dickens  furnishes  another  curious  analogy  with  the  Arabic  vernacular. 
Mrs.  MacStinger  denounces  with  bitter  emphasis  Captain  Cuttle's  "guzzlings 
and  muzzlings."  The  irate  landlady  has  not  in  mind  the  verb  "to  muzzle  ": 
she  simply  follows  with  the  Syrians — and,  I  understand,  with  the  Turks  as 
well — a  tendency  to  emphasize  a  word  by  repeating  it  in  altered  form,  substi- 
tuting the  letter  M  for  the  initial  letter:  "semen  wa  memen,"  "khubr, 
mubr,"  etc.,  etc. 


THE   COMMON   ARABIC   SPEECH  OF  SYRIA  165 

as  far  as  I  am  aware,  in  the  literary  language.  Such  roots,  for  ex- 
ample, form  the  basis  of  the  conjugations  of  the  verbs  "  to  see  "  and 
"  to  go."  Thus  "  he  went"  is  spoken  "  rah,"  it  is  written  "  dha'- 
hab";  "he  saw"  is  spoken  "shaf":  it  is  written  "na'dhar."* 
Some  words,  however,  especially  particles,  which  appear  super- 
ficially to  have  no  connection  with  grammatical  forms,  are  found 
when  analyzed  to  be  corruptions  or  combinations  of  these. 
One  interesting  question  regarding  the  relations  of  the  two  dia- 
lects is  as  to  how  far  the  uneducated  people  understand  the  classi- 
cal language,  which  is  wonderfully  rich  in  synonyms.  The  old- 
fashioned  rhetorician,  priding  himself  on  his  knowledge  of  ob- 
scure words,  might  produce  a  speech  that  would  entirely  puzzle 
the  unlearned.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  is  quite  possible  to 
write  perfectly  classical  Arabic  which  the  peasant  may  clearly 
comprehend  although  he  cannot  use  it.  Thus  the  noble  Arabic 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  made  by  Doctors  Eli  Smith  and 
Cornelius  Van  Dyck,  with  the  literary  assistance  of  one  of  the 
finest  native  Arabic  scholars  of  his  day,  is  a  model  of  classical 
purity,  while  at  the  same  time  it  is  easily  understood  by  the  people. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  Ritual  of  the  Greek  Church,  as 
well  as  of  such  parts  of  the  Maronite  Ritual  as  are  translated  into 
Arabic.  Summing  up,  it  may  be  stated  that  whereas  the  great 
majority  of  roots  employed  in  the  vulgar  speech  are  also  common 
to  the  classical,  the  latter,  being  far  richer,  contains  many  that 
never  appear  in  ordinary  use. 

The  differences  between  the  S}Tian  and  the  Egyptian  dialects 
are  largely  superficial,  but  like  all  things  on  the  surface  they  are 
at  once  apparent,  especially  as  they  characterize  the  forms  of 
speech  in  most  constant  use.  Coming  to  Egypt  from  Syria  for 
the  first  time,  the  first  day  I  understood  little  and  was  under- 
stood less;  the  second  day  many  of  the  puzzles  of  the  first  were 
explained,  and  within  a  few  days  I  found  no  difficulty  in  express- 
ing myself  and  in  understanding.  When  the  Syrian  finds  that 
he  must  say  "Ai  di?"  instead  of  "Shu  ha'dha?"  in  asking 

*  In  reproducing  forms  that  the  Arabs  themselves  never  write  it  would  be 
pedantic  to  use  Arabic  type.  When  the  late  Dr.  H.  H.  Jessup  brought  out 
an  edition  in  Vulgar  Arabic  of  the  English  Nursery  Rhymes,  the  bewilderment 
of  the  tjrpe-setters  was  equalled  only  by  their  amusement.  Accordingly  in 
this  paper  the  forms  will  all  be  transliterated.  The  accent  is  indicated  by  an 
acute:  "ac'cent." 


166  THE   COMMON  AKABIC   SPEECH   OF   SYRIA 

"What  is  this?";  when  he  learns  to  drop  the  use  of  "bed'di" 
(my  wish),  "bed'dak"  (thy  wish)  to  express  not  only  desire  but 
present  action;  when  he  begins  to  accent  the  second  syllable  of 
many  words  instead  of  the  first — then  he  is  on  the  road  to  talking 
like  an  Egyptian.  It  is  amusing  how  this  lesson,  once  learned, 
sticks  to  the  learner,  who  after  his  first  brief  holiday  in  Cairo 
may  return  to  Syria  with  a  fine  Egyptian  veneer  over  all  his 
speech. 

I  know  of  no  language  that  has  so  highly  organized  a  system 
of  wordless  speech,  to  emphasize  articulation  as  well  as  to  sub- 
stitute for  it,  as  the  Arabic.  I  refer  of  course  to  the  gestures 
which  are  commonly  used  in  Syria  and  Palestine,  even  by  the 
most  voluble  in  vocal  utterance.  One  of  the  most  expressive 
signifies,  in  its  elementary  meaning,  the  idea  of  waiting.  You 
may  be,  for  example,  talking  with  some  one;  a  servant  looms  on 
the  horizon,  wanting  to  speak  to  you;  instead  of  interrupting 
the  conversation  to  tell  him  to  wait,  you  draw  together  your 
fingers  so  that  they  meet  the  thumb,  hold  out  your  hand,  fingers 
pointing  upward,  and  shake  it  up  and  down.  I  have  seen  a 
school-boy  make  the  same  gesture,  with  an  accompanying  scowl 
of  menace,  to  his  seat-mate,  who  had  prodded  him  in  the  leg, 
or  had  offered  some  similar  indignity  under  the  temporary  im- 
munity of  school-time:  what  he  meant  was  "Just  wait  till  I 
catch  you  outside!"  "It's  none  of  my  business"  is  perfectly 
expressed  by  shaking  the  lapel  of  your  coat.  You  may  signify 
the  idea  of  "nothing  at  all"  by  slipping  your  thumb-nail  under 
your  tooth,  and  then  rapidly  jerking  your  hand  forward.  When 
you  want  to  know  "What's  up?"  you  give  your  wrist  a  rapid 
turn  with  the  hand  half  open. 

Syria,  including  Palestine,  is  but  the  narrow  strip  of  land  at 
the  East  End  of  the  Mediterranean,  about  400  miles  long  and — 
exclusive  of  the  Desert — ranging  from  70  to  100  miles  in  breadth, 
yet  every  variety  of  pronunciation  may  be  found  within  its  limits 
from  the  broad  vowels  of  the  Maronite  dwellers  in  the  high 
Lebanon,  relic  perhaps  of  their  Aramaic  origin,  to  the  painfully 
flat  vocalization  of  the  Druses.  Apart  from  actual  pronuncia- 
tion, the  inhabitant  of  any  given  district,  sometimes  of  a  given 
village,  may  be  bewrayed  by  his  very  tones.  One  learns  to  con- 
trast the  gentle,  insinuating  cadences  of  Damascus,  and  especially 


THE   COMMON   ARABIC   SPEECH   OF   SYRIA  167 

of  Hama,  with  the  coarse  robustness  of  the  Beyrout  Moslem; 
the  mincing  tones  of  the  Druse  peasant  with  the  abrupt  ejacula- 
tions of  the  dwellers  under  the  shadows  of  the  Cedar  Mountain, 
in  the  Besherreh  district.  You  may  pick  out  natives  of  Deir-al- 
Qamr  and  of  'Abeih  by  their  pronunciation  of  the  word  "ana" 
(the  first  personal  pronoun,  I),  which  they  turn  into  something 
that  sounds  like  "eh'na."  Such  great  variations  of  speech  over 
so  small  an  area  are  to  be  expected  from  an  ancient  civilization 
whose  law  has  been  inter-marriage  within  narrowly  circum- 
scribed districts.  As  a  rule,  again,  a  Moslem  may  be  distin- 
guished from  a  Christian  by  his  pronunciation,  at  least  in  the 
cities.  In  the  dropping  of  the  letter  Qaf,  initial  or  otherwise,  in  or- 
dinary speech,  the  country  is  almost  universally  Cockney.  When 
dropped  from  the  middle  or  end  of  a  word  its  place  is  taken  by 
a  Hamza,  or  emphatic  interruption  of  sound.  The  Druces, 
however,  even  the  Uninitiated,  usually  retain  it  in  full  force. 
But  as  the  London  Cockney  is  apt  to  most  betray  himself  when 
he  tries  to  be  especially  correct  in  the  matter  of  the  letter  H,  so 
the  uneducated  Syrian  falls  into  absurd  blunders  when  he  at- 
tempts to  show  off  a  supposed  knowledge  of  the  classical.  Once 
when  we  had  a  rabbit  hanging  in  the  Kitchen  Tent,  a  pompous 
but  ignorant  Sheikh  who  was  calling  on  us  asked,  with  an  af- 
fectation of  High  Arabic,  whether  we  ate  Qar'nab,  thus  adding  a 
perfectly  superfluous  Qaf  to  the  word  "Ar'nab."  The  Syrians 
tell  a  story  of  a  village  school-teacher,  who  desiring  to  inculcate 
the  pronunciation  of  the  Qaf,  which  he  had  never  been  able  to 
master  himself,  said  to  his  pupils:  "You  must  always  pronounce 
the  letter  'Af — but  not  like  me!" 

All  languages,  I  presume,  have  certain  forms  of  Baby-Talk 
but  I  know  of  none  like  the  Arabic  Vernacular,  which  possesses 
a  list  of  words,  short,  indeed,  but  covering  amply  the  simple 
needs  of  infancy,  being  genuine  duo-literal  roots,  and  not  ab- 
breviations or  corruptions  of  adult  speech.  I  must  content  my- 
self here  with  giving  the  list  of  words  (monosyllabic  but  some- 
times repeated),  leaving  an  etymological  study  of  them  for  other 
times  or  persons.  Almost  all  these  words  I  learned  as  a  child 
in  Beyrout  and  the  Lebanon,  but  recently  I  have  submitted  the 
list  to  natives  of  Mesopotamia  and  of  Egypt,  who  recognized 
part  but  not  all.     A  few  of  the  words  might  be  characterized 


168  THE   COMMON  ARABIC   SPEECH   OF   SYRIA 

as  onomatapoetic.  A  child  first  becomes  articulate  on  the  sub- 
jects of  food  and  drink,  and  then  rapidly  learns  to  express  the 
elemental  ideas  of  pain,  pleasure,  exercise,  sleep,  etc.  His 
parents  soon  feel  the  necessity  of  making  him  understand  words 
for  prohibition  and  punishment.  A  vocabulary  covering  such 
experiences  is  quite  adequate.  Here,  then,  is  the  list,  as  far  as 
I  know  it: 

NAN  (Egyptian  MAM)  food         KAKH,  dirty,  ugly; 

BUFF,  hot  food;  WA'WA,  pain; 

EMBt)',  water,  drink;  BAH!  gone,  out  of  sight; 

O'OH',  sleep;  DID'DY  (Egyptian  A' AH') 
DA'DA,  walk;  slap,  punish; 

TISH,  go  to  walk;  Dt !  you  mustn't! 

NU'NU,  little;  TISS,  money; 

DAH!  pretty,  nice;  DEH,  horse. 

A  Syrian  parent  or  grandparent  has  a  curious  habit  of  attrib- 
uting his  own  personality  to  the  child:  thus  a  father  will  call 
his  son  "My  father,"  a  mother  will  call  him  "My  mother,"  a 
grandmother  will  say  "My  grandmother."  Sometimes,  to  ex- 
press greater  love,  a  mother  will  address  her  daughter  as  a  boy, 
with  all  the  masculine  verbal  and  adjective  forms. 

The  Syrian  vernacular  is  rich  in  stereotyped  polite  phrases 
which  apply  to  all  the  ordinary  emergencies  of  life.  They  form 
a  common  inheritance,  coming  as  readily  to  the  lips  of  the  peasant 
or  the  beggar  as  to  the  lips  of  the  courtier.  They  constitute  the 
"  blarney"  of  the  land.  Much  of  this  appears  to  be  unfamiliar  to 
the  dwellers  of  Egypt,  and  I  gather  that  it  is  more  widely  diffused 
in  Syria  than  in  Palestine.  Such  a  blarney  is  known  in  Italy, 
but  for  every  conventional  polite  expression  used  in  English, 
the  Syrian  dialect  can  show  a  score.  The  salutations  follow  a 
sort  of  antiphonal  liturgy,  often  remarkable  for  its  indirection. 
A  common  sequence  in  the  Lebanon  is  as  follows:  "Inhfi'rak  or 
naha'rak  sa'id'":  May  thy  morn  be  happy;  "Inha'rak  imba'rak 
or  muba'rak":  May  thy  morn  be  blessed;  "Kaif  lia'lak?"  How 
is  thy  condition?  "Al'lah  sel'mak":  God  give  thee  peace; 
"Inshul'lah  mabstit'":  God  grant  thou  art  well;  "Taht  nu'- 
zurak":  Under  thy  protection.  This  counter-stroke  must  at 
once  be  parried  by  the  exclamation :  "  Nu'zur  Al'lah ! " :  Under  the 


THE   COMMON  ARABIC   SPEECH  OF   SYRIA  1G9 

protection  of  God,  before  the  dialogue  can  proceed:  "Kaif  hal 
al  mahrusin'?"  How  are  the  preserved,  i.  e.,  the  children? 
"Bibti'su  i'dak":  They  kiss  thy  hands.  And  so  on  ad  infinitum. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  when  our  Lord  sent  his  disciples  upon  their 
mission  he  warned  them  to  salute  no  man  by  the  way! 

Among  the  phrases  in  general  use  the  following  are  common:* 
*' Na'ai'man " :  Grace  be  upon  thee  (used  when  one  has  been  to 
the  bath  or  the  barber);  "Imba'rak":  Blessings  on  thee  (used 
when  a  friend  has  new  clothes);  "Heni'yan":  Congratulations! 
(when  one  has  drunk  water  or  sherbet);  "Ah'lan  wa  sah'lan 
(said  in  welcome  and  meaning:  You  are  of  our  folk,  it  is  easy  to 
entertain  you);  "Dai'man":  Forever!  (said  when  a  guest  has 
drunk  the  coffee);  "Sah'tain":  Two  healths!  (said  when  a  guest 
appears  to  enjoy  the  food),  to  which  the  answer  is — for  each 
phrase  has  its  set  answer — "'Ala  qal'bak":  Upon  thy  heart  be 
it.  At  the  end  of  a  visit  there  is  this  final  exchange  of  polite 
salutes:  "Bil  izn":  By  permission;  "Izn'kum  ma'^kum;  shurruf- 
tu'na":  Your  permission  is  with  you;  you  have  honored  us; 
" Tshurruf 'na ;  bikhat^r'kum " :  We  have  been  honored;  by  your 
favor.  The  host  then  has  the  last  word:  "Ma'  sala'my":  Go  in 
peace!  On  admiring  a  piece  of  handiwork  or  in  acknowledging 
some  manual  favor,  you  say:  "Sel'lim  dayya'tak":  Peace  to 
thy  hands.  On  receiving  a  compliment  you  are  supposed  to 
protest:  "Min  lut'fak":  This  is  of  thy  poHteness.  It  is  expected 
that  you  should  murmur  unobtrusively:  "  Istagh'far  Al'lah  " :  God 
forbid!  when  an  equal  or  a  superior  refers  to  himself  as  your 
servant. 

On  the  etiquette  of  addresses  much  could  be  written,  but  this 
hardly  falls  under  our  present  subject.  Here  is  a  specimen: 
"  Ila  Had'rat  al  Ba'ria',  al  Fa'dhil,  al  Ka'rim,  al  Muhadh'dhab 
Mti'sa  'Abdullah,  al  Muhta'ram,  dam  baqa'hu":  To  the 
Presence  of  the  Distinguished,  the  Magnanimous,  the  Generous, 
the  Cultured  Musa  Abdullah  the  Honorable,  May  he  live  for- 
ever! More  germane  to  the  present  paper  are  the  common 
endearments,  such  as:  "Ya  ru'hi":  My  spirit;  "Ya  ai'ni":  My 
eye;  "  Ya  tuqbur'ni":  My  gravedigger  (literally,  O  thou  who  shalt 
bury  me;  as  who  should  say,  My  survivor).  I  may  add  that  the 
polite  native  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  use  of  stereotyped 
*  In  some  cases  we  translate  in  paraphrase. 


170  THE   COMMON  ARABIC   SPEECH  OF   SYRIA 

phrases,  but,  however  humble  his  condition,  may  be  capable 
of  improvisation  along  the  same  lines.  On  my  first  visit  to  a 
certain  Lebanon  village,  some  three  thousand  feet  above  the 
sea-level,  one  of  the  inhabitants  asked  me  how  it  happened  that 
I  had  never  been  there  before.  When  I  pleaded  the  steep  ascent 
as  an  excuse,  he  said  at  once:  "Had  we  known  of  the  possibility 
of  your  Excellency's  honoring  us,  we  would  have  made  the  way 
a  plain!" 

We  are  bound  to  state  that  an  equal  fecundity  is  shown  in 
the  phrases  of  objurgation.  Dr.  Spoer  gives  a  list  of  curses  at 
the  end  of  his  book.  A  very  angry  man  may  be  spurred  into 
improvisation  with  results  as  shocking  as  they  are  amusing.  It 
may  happen  that  a  man  will  curse  the  religion  of  his  own  donkey's 
master!  It  is  interesting  to  note  an  analogy  with  the  affectionate 
use  in  English  of  "Confound  you!"  and  of  the  words  "rascal," 
"scamp,"  "sinner,"  etc.,  addressed  to  children.  The  Syrians 
often  say:  "Yukh'rab  bei'tak!":  May  thy  house  be  ruined!  to 
express  amused  admiration. 

Twenty  years  since  in  an  article  on  the  Aramaic  dialect  of 
Ma'lula,  one  of  a  group  of  three  small  villages  to  the  north-east 
of  Damascus,  where  the  ancient  Aramaic  has  come  down  in  a  very 
corrupt  form,  I  called  attention  to  the  use  of  common  Arabic 
roots,  which  were  subjected  to  the  Aramaic  laws  of  inflection, 
conjugation,  etc.*  A  similar  tendency  is  going  on  today  in 
the  United  States  where  tens  of  thousands  of  Syrians  are  con- 
gregated in  different  centres.  Into  the  ordinary  vernacular 
have  become  incorporated  many  English  roots,  which  follow  the 
grammatical  changes  of  the  language  upon  which  they  haVe 
been  grafted.  Thus  the  Syrians  have  appropriated  the  word 
Hotel,  but  instead  of  saying  Hotels,  they  make  a  plural  by  in- 
ternal change,  according  to  a  common  Arabic  formation,  and 
say  "  Howatil'."  Taking  an  English  root "  to  change,"  they  make 
an  intensive  or  Piel  verbal  form;  thus  for  "Change  cars"  they 
say  "Chen'nij";  "Chennej'elna"  means  "Give  us  change." 
Here  not  only  the  middle  radical  is  doubled,  but  we  also  find  the 
proper  pronominal  suffix.  The  vocalization  of  these  hybrids 
is  as  fluid  as  it  is  in  real  Arabic.     Thus  "  They  made  me  a  present 

*  Published  in  the  April  number  of  the  Quarterly  Statement  of  the  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund  for  1890. 


THE   COMMON   ARABIC   SPEECH   OF   SYRIA  171 

of  it"  becomes,  "  Barzanti'ni  ffha."  Here  we  also  note  that  B 
substitutes  for  P,  which  is  non-existent  in  Arabic.  A  more 
compHcated  expression  of  the  same  idea  is  found  in  the  phrase 
of  a  woman  who,  when  asked  where  she  got  an  expensive  article, 
said  (referring  to  a  rich  lady  friend):  ''Farnatit'ni  fi'ha  as-Sitt." 
What  she  meant  was:  "The  lady  gave  it  to  me  for  nothing," 
or  better,  "She  for-nothinged  me  with  it!"  Such  borrowings 
are  made  from  other  languages  also.  From  the  Italian  comes 
the  use  of  Fantasf  yeh,  the  reflexive  form  being  "  Itfan'taz"  mean- 
ing "  to  have  a  good  time." 

Here  are  some  of  the  forms  from  the  conjugation  of  the  verb 
"to  telephone,"  with  the  pronominal  suffixes: 

Telphentil'hu :  I  telephoned  him; 
Telphentil'lak:  I  telephoned  thee; 
Telphenit'li :     she  telephoned  me; 
Telphennel'hum:  we  telephoned  them; 
Telphenniil'na:  they  telephoned  us; 
Telphen'ni!  :  telephone  me! 

A  supposed  correspondence  is  traced  by  the  emigrant  Syrians 
between  many  Arabic  and  English  proper  names.  The  ignorant 
seem  to  regard  them  as  real  equivalents.  At  any  rate,  each  name 
may  be  said  to  have  its  recognized  working  equivalent,  based  on  a 
superficial  likeness  not  often  extending  to  all  the  radicals.  Thus 
Khaltr  becomes  Charlie;  Nejib',  Jim;  Selim',  Sam;  Fuad', 
Fred;  Afffy,  Eva;  Shaffqa,  Sophie;  Nej'la,  Nellie;  Mahfba, 
Mabel,  etc.,  etc.  The  attempts  to  pronounce  foreign  names  are 
amusing,  though  following  recognized  phonetic  laws  of  change, 
and  reminding  one  of  the  Arabicizing  of  ancient  place-names  in 
Palestine,  where  you  find  Fendequmfyeh  representing  Pente- 
komias,  and  Qasr  BerdawiF  standing  for  Baldwin's  Castle. 
Once  when  a  returned  emigrant  gave  me  the  name  of  the  place  in 
South  America  where  he  had  done  business,  I  had  to  think  a 
minute  before  I  could  recognize  in  the  Semitic-sounding  term 
"  Bint-al-Beda'wi "  the  Latin  capital  Monte  Video. 

Clifton  Springs,  N.  Y., 
Jultj  19,  1910. 


XIV 

THE    PERSON    OF    JESUS    IN    THE    DOUBLE   TRA- 
DITION   OF    MATTHEW    AND    LUKE 

By  George  Holley  Gilbert 

This  paper  assumes,  as  well  established,  certain  results  of 
synoptic  criticism,  viz.,  (a)  that  our  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
originated  in  substantial  independence  the  one  of  the  other,  (b) 
that  these  Gospels  in  the  sections  which  they  have  in  common  and 
which  have  no  parallels  in  Mark  rest  upon  a  common  written 
document  (or,  perhaps,  documents),  and  (c)  that  this  document 
consisted  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  of  words  of  Jesus  brought  to- 
gether without  clear  indications  of  the  occasions  on  which  they 
were  spoken. 

Further,  this  paper  also  naturally  assumes  that  the  written 
document  which  underlies  the  parallel  sections  of  our  Matthew 
and  Luke — those  sections,  that  is,  which  have  no  parallels  in 
Mark — reflects  the  Christian  tradition  of  a  time  anterior  to  the 
composition  of  these  Gospels,  perhaps  in  large  measure  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  first  Christian  generation,  and  that  it  is  for  this  reason 
of  very  great  value.  It  must  have  been  highly  esteemed  and 
widely  circulated  in  the  early  Church  to  account  for  its  large 
use  in  iwo  Gospels  so  unlike  as  Matthew  and  Luke,  one  of  which 
appears  to  have  been  written  by  a  Jew,  while  the  other  was  writ- 
ten by  a  Gentile  for  Gentile  readers. 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  paper  to  ascertain  as  far  as  possible  what 
the  ancient  document  in  question  had  to  teach  in  regard  to  the 
person  of  Jesus. 

Of  the  extent  of  this  lost  source  we  have  no  certain  knowledge. 
The  material  that  Matthew  and  Luke  extracted  from  it  amounts 
to  about  five  chapters  of  average  length  (ca.  182  verses  in  Mt. 
and  177  in  Lu.),  and  since  this  material  covers  the  entire  public 

173 


174  THE   PERSON   OF  JESUS 

ministry  of  Jesus  up  to  the  eve  of  his  crucifixion  it  may  be  con- 
jectured that  our  evangelists  made  use  of  practically  the  entire 
document.  This  conclusion  is  somewhat  confirmed  by  the  con- 
sideration that  if  this  ancient  document  had  not  been  absorbed 
pretty  completely  in  Matthew  and  Luke,  it  would  naturally  have 
continued  in  circulation,  for  the  Church  would  not  consciously 
have  allowed  any  sayings  of  Jesus  to  be  forgotten. 

Of  the  general  character  of  this  source,  in  addition  to  the  state- 
ment already  made,  that  it  consisted  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  of 
w^ords  of  Jesus,  it  may  now  be  added  that  these  w^ords  of  Jesus 
were  short  striking  sayings,  such  as  might  easily  have  been  kept 
in  memory  and  widely  circulated  long  before  they  w^ere  committed 
to  writing.  It  seems  to  have  contained  but  one  parable,  that  of 
the  Leaven.  For  though  the  parables  of  the  Wedding  Feast  (Mt). 
and  the  Great  Supper  (Lu.),  may  be  modifications  of  one  orig- 
inal story,  and  though  in  like  manner  the  parable  of  the  Talents 
(Mt.)  and  that  of  the  Pounds  (Lu.)  may  have  sprung  from  one 
utterance  of  the  Master,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  wide  variations 
between  these  parables  are  to  be  set  down  to  the  conscious  ac- 
tivity of  the  evangelists.  The  differentiation  is  more  likely  to 
have  been  prior  to  the  written  sources  whence  Matthew  and 
Luke  drew.* 

Another  general  remark  in  regard  to  the  sayings  of  the  docu- 
ment with  which  w^e  are  concerned  is  that  the  greater  part  of 
them  are  purely  ethical,  such  as  the  injunction  to  agree  with 
one's  adversary  (Mt.  5^^'^®,  Lu.  12^^'^^),  not  to  resist  one  who 
does  evil  (Mt.  5'^  Lu.  6''),  to  love  one's  enemies  (Mt.  5*\  Lu. 
g27-28^^  and  the  teaching  that  it  is  impossible  to  serve  both  God 
and  Mammon  (Mt.  6^^  Lu.  16").  This  large  group  of  utterances 
puts  Jesus  in  the  class  of  great  spiritual  teachers.  They  make 
no  radical  line  of  demarcation  between  him  and  an  Isaiah  or 
Jeremiah.  He  appears  in  the  prophetic  succession,  w-here  some 
of  his  contemporaries  distinctly  acknowledged  that  he  stood 
(Mt.  8"*),  and  where  Jesus  himself  was  also  conscious  of  standing 
(Lu.  13^^).     On  these  passages,  therefore,  we  shall  not  dwell, 

*  Professor  Burton  supposes  that  Matthew  drew  here  from  the  Logia  and 
Luke  from  a  Perean  document,  which  he  designates  "P."  For  the  text  of 
these  documents  according  to  Burton,  see  Sharman's  The  Teaching  of  Jestis 
about  the  Future  (1909). 


THE   PERSON   OF  JESUS  175 

but  pass  on  at  once  to  those  data  which  seem  at  least  to  set  Jesus 
apart  from  the  prophets,  and  in  some  sense  above  them. 

Part  of  these  data  are  in  such  a  state  of  preservation  in  the 
two  Gospels  that  we  cannot  certainly  regard  them  as  belonging 
to  the  more  ancient  common  source.  These  we  must  first 
consider: 

1.  In  Mt.  5"  (Lu.  6""^^)  Jesus  is  represented  as  setting  him- 
self directly  against  the  traditional  law:  "Ye  have  heard  that  it 
was  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  and  hate  thine  enemy; 
but  I  say  unto  you,  love  your  enemies,"  etc.  This  strong  as- 
sertion of  superiority  to  all  former  authorities  in  Israel  which  is 
prominent  in  Matthew's  version  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
(see  5^*-  ^^-  ^*-  ^^-  ")  is  not  supported  by  Luke.  For  though  he 
introduces  the  injunction  to  love  one's  enemies  with  the  words 
"  But  I  say  unto  you,"  *  the  antithesis  is  with  the  verse  immedi- 
ately preceding,  and  that  does  not  refer  to  the  Law.  There  is 
also  an  intrinsic  improbability  in  supposing  that  Jesus,  who, 
in  Mt.  5^^,  had  declared  that  while  heaven  and  earth  remain  one 
jot  of  the  Law  should  not  pass,  would  have  voluntarily  antago- 
nized the  scribes  by  setting  his  word  above  the  sacred  Law.  As 
he  most  carefully  sought  to  avoid  a  popular  misunderstanding 
of  his  attitude  toward  Messiahship,  even  so,  we  may  naturally 
think,  he  would  not  have  provoked  a  conflict  with  the  rulers  in 
regard  to  that  Law  which  was  certainly  of  as  great  importance 
in  their  sight  as  was  the  Messianic  hope.  It  seems  probable, 
therefore,  that  the  introduction  to  the  injunction  in  Mt.  5",  as 
also  in  the  other  parallel  cases  to  which  references  have  been 
given,  belongs  to  the  editorial  activity  of  the  evangelist. 

2.  It  is  doubtful  whether  Matthew  and  Luke  go  back  to  the 
common  written  source  of  their  double  tradition  in  the  word  of 
Mt.  7'^  and  Lu.  6".  This  reads  according  to  Mt. : "  Not  every  one 
that  saith  unto  me.  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my  father  who  is  in  heaven." 
But  Luke  has  in  the  same  setting  these  words:  "Why  call  ye  me, 
Lord,  Lord,  and  do  not  the  things  that  I  say."  This  saying  in 
Luke  is  a  protest  against  present  insincerity;  that  of  Matthew 
refers,  according  to  the  context,  to  the  time  of  the  future  judg- 

*  Luke  has  a  stronger  adversative  than  Matthew  (dXXd  in  place  of  5^),  but 
does  not  have  the  personal  contrast  furnished  by  Matthew's  ^Ifi. 


176  THE   PERSON   OF  JESUS 

ment.  Moreover,  the  words  in  Matthew  presuppose  a  concep- 
tion of  Jesus  which  cannot  be  carried  back  to  so  early  a  time  as 
that  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  People  who  could  possibly 
imagine  that  a  reverent  attitude  toward  Jesus  would  be  a  suffi- 
cient passport  in  the  time  of  judgment  must  be  supposed  to  have 
clearly  recognized  him  as  the  Messiah;  but  such  recognition 
seems  not  to  have  taken  place  before  the  great  day  at  Csesarea 
Philippi.  While  therefore  the  sayings  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
may  go  back  to  the  same  utterance  of  Jesus,  it  is  not  certain  what 
that  original  saying  was. 

3.  Another  passage  in  the  Double  Tradition  of  Matthew  and 
Luke  whose  origin  can  hardly  be  placed  in  the  common  written 
source  which  we  are  considering  is  that  which  asserts  a  judicial 
function  of  the  twelve  apostles.  According  to  Mt.  19^^  this  reads: 
"  And  Jesus  said  unto  them.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  which 
have  followed  me,  in  the  regeneration  when  the  Son  of  Man  shall 
sit  on  the  throne  of  his  glory,  ye  also  shall  sit  upon  twelve  thrones, 
judging  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel";  and  according  to  Luke 
2228-30.  "gyj;  yg  ^yg  ^j^gy  which  havc  continued  with  me  in  my 
temptations;  and  I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  even  as  my 
Father  appointed  unto  me;  that  ye  may  eat  and  drink  at  my 
table,  in  my  kingdom;  and  ye  shall  sit  on  thrones  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel."  It  is  noticeable,  in  the  first  place,  that 
the  settings  of  the  sayings  in  Matthew  and  Luke  are  unusually 
divergent.  In  Matthew  it  is  spoken  in  response  to  a  question  of 
Peter,  in  Luke  it  is  a  spontaneous  utterance  of  Jesus.  Peter 
seems  to  be  actuated,  in  Matthew,  by  much  the  same  motive 
that  led  James  and  John  to  seek  the  first  places  in  the  coming 
kingdom,  but  in  Luke  Jesus  of  his  own  accord  promises  kingly 
rule  to  the  Twelve  in  view  of  their  faithfulness.  Still  more  sig- 
nificant  are  the  phraseology  and  ideas.  Thus  the  word  ttoXiv- 
<yeve(Tia  occurs  nowhere  else  in  the  Gospels,  nor  indeed  in  the 
entire  New  Testament  in  the  sense  it  has  here,  for  in  Tit.  3^ 
it  is  individual  and  ethical,  not  cosmical.*  Further,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  that  throws  light  on  the  term, 
no  idea  that  is  parallel  to  the  meaning  which  it  seems  to  have. 
It  appears  in  the  text  as  a  foreign  element.     Again,  the  thought 

*  It  is  of  interest  to  note  here  that,  according  to  Dalman,  Die  Worte  Jesu, 
p.  145,  this  word  cannot  be  literally  translated  either  into  Hebrew  or  Aramaic. 


THE   PERSON   OF  JESUS  177 

that  Jesus  is  to  sit  upon  a  throne  is  purely  Matthsean,  and  the 
other  passage  in  which  it  is  found  (25^'"''")  bears  marks  of  a  late 
origin.  Then  the  promise  that  the  twelve  should  be  enthroned 
as  judges  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel  seems  to  depart  in  two 
fundamental  points  from  the  thought  of  Jesus.  Thus  he  told 
James  and  John  that  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  assign  places 
of  honor  in  the  kingdom  of  the  future  (Mt.  20^'),  and  he  made  it 
clear  on  more  than  one  occasion  that  the  way  of  true  honor  was 
open  to  all  disciples  without  distinction  (Mt.  20^",  23");  but  both 
these  positions,  according  to  the  present  passage,  he  surrenders. 
It  may  also  properly  be  added  that  the  strictly  national  outlook 
of  this  verse  does  not  accord  with  the  thought  of  Jesus.  Noth- 
ing in  his  teaching  is  more  certain  than  that  he  regarded  his  rev- 
elation of  God  as  fitted  and  destined  to  bring  blessing  to  all 
mankind.  Even  in  the  source  now  under  consideration,  on  oc- 
casion of  the  faith  of  a  Gentile,  Jesus  declared  that  many  should 
come  from  the  east  and  the  west  and  sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  (Mt.  8"'^^  Lu.  13"^"^^),  a  statement  which  is  assuredly 
not  to  be  limited  to  the  Jews  of  the  Diaspora.  It  is  a  vision  of 
Gentile  conversion,  called  out  by  Gentile  faith. 

There  are  still  expressions  in  Luke's  version  of  this  saying 
of  Jesus  which  deserve  notice  besides  those  that  are  common  to 
him  with  Matthew.  Thus  it  is  without  parallel  in  the  Gos- 
pels that  Jesus  speaks  of  his  "temptations"  (Tret/jacr/tiot?), 
temptations  which  his  disciples  have  in  some  sense  shared  with 
him.  Again,  in  the  words  "  I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  even 
as  my  Father  appointed  unto  me,"  we  have  an  unparalleled  use 
of  ^aa-iXeia.  For  though  in  Lu.  19*^  it  is  used  in  the  sense  of 
authority,  it  is  nowhere  so  employed  with  reference  to  authority 
in  the  kingdom  of  God.  Finally,  it  is  only  here  in  the  Gospels 
that  participation  in  the  authority  and  honor  of  Jesus  is  set  forth 
in  the  figure  of  eating  and  drinking  at  his  table.  In  view  there- 
fore of  these  peculiarities  in  the  double  text  of  this  passage  we 
cannot  regard  it  as  a  part  of  the  common  source  from  which 
Matthew  and  Luke  drew  their  parallel  material. 

We  pass  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  texts  clearly  belonging 
to  the  common  source  which  seem  to  put  Jesus  in  a  class  by  him- 
self, separate  from  the  prophets;  and  we  shall  take  these  up  in 
the  order  in  which  they  occur  in  Luke. 


178  THE   PERSON  OF  JESUS 

1.  The  first  of  the  data  in  this  group  concerns  the  attitude 
of  men  toward  Jesus.  It  is  the  great  utterance  closing  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  and  its  positive  content  is  that  one  who  hears 
and  does  the  words  of  Jesus  is  like  a  man  who  builds  on  a  rock- 
foundation  (Lu.  6"-''^  Mt.  7'*-").  The  floods  cannot  shake 
his  structure.  It  has  the  firmness  of  Jesus  himself,  for  it  is 
built  on  the  words  of  Jesus.  Other  sayings  in  our  source  that 
bear  on  this  same  point  may  conveniently  be  brought  together 
here.  It  would  appear  from  the  narrative  of  the  centurion  in 
Capernaum  of  whom,  after  his  message  to  Jesus,  the  latter 
said,  "  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel "  (Lu. 
7^"^°,  Mt.  8^"),  that  Jesus  had  been  looking  for  faith  on  the 
part  of  those  who  had  heard  his  word  and  seen  his  works.  To 
judge  from  this  narrative  the  faith  which  Jesus  welcomed  was 
trust  in  him  as  one  able  and  willing  to  help.  It  is  not  more 
nearly  defined  in  this  source.  Another  significant  saying  in 
regard  to  the  attitude  of  men  toward  Jesus  is  that  of  Lu.  12^®, 
Mt.  10^2-3^:  "Every  one  who  shall  confess  me  before  men, 
him  shall  the  Son  of  Man  also  confess  before  the  angels  of  God: 
but  he  that  denieth  me  in  the  presence  of  men  shall  be  denied 
in  the  presence  of  the  angels  of  God."  The  term  "confess," 
though  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  synoptists,  is  in  both  Matthew 
and  Luke,  and  seems  to  have  stood  in  the  source.  Its  general 
sense  is  determined  by  the  antithetic  word  "deny,"  and  by  the 
antithesis  of  the  two  scenes  of  mutual  confession  or  denial,  one 
in  the  presence  of  men,  the  other  before  the  angels  of  God,  that 
is,  in  the  judgment.  The  saying  clearly  assumes  that  a  man's 
attitude  toward  Jesus  is  of  fundamental  importance.* 

2.  The  message  of  Jesus  to  John  the  Baptist  indicates  his 
thought  of  himself  from  another  point  of  view.  It  defines  by 
contrasting  him  with  the  former  revelation  of  God.  John  had 
sent  to  Jesus,  saying,  "Art  thou  he  that  cometh,  or  look  we  for 
another?"  (Lu.  V^-^\  Mt.  IP-').  The  answer  of  Jesus  contains 
two  important  points,  or  rather  two  mutually  supplementary 
aspects  of  one  relationship.     In  the  first  place,  the  messengers 

*  The  word  of  Matthew,  "He  who  loves  father  or  mother  more  than  me," 
hardly  belongs  with  the  preceding  passages.  It  might  have  been  spoken  by 
a  prophet.  Any  one  conscious  of  having  a  message  from  God  knows  that  his 
relation  to  men,  for  this  very  reason,  is  of  more  worth  than  human  friendship. 


THE   PERSON   OF  JESUS  179 

were  to  tell  John  what  they  had  heard  and  seen,  and  it  appears 
that  these  facts  were  thought  to  be  suggestive  for  John  because 
of  their  correspondence  to  such  prophetic  forecasts  as  those  of 
Is.  35^  and  60';  and  second,  they  were  to  bear  back  this  weighty 
personal  word:  "Blessed  is  he  whosoever  shall  find  none  occasion 
of  stumbling  in  me."  It  is  here  plainly  admitted  to  be  possible 
that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  activity  of  Jesus  answers  in  a 
remarkable  manner  to  prophetic  pictures  of  the  coming  age, 
one  may  find  in  him  occasion  of  stumbling.  It  appears  from 
this  that,  in  the  thought  of  Jesus,  he  did  not  altogether  correspond 
to  the  prophetic  forecasts  of  the  deliverer  who  should  one  day 
arise  for  Israel.  He  fulfilled,  and  again  he  did  not  fulfill. 
His  appearance  answered  to  Is.  60S  but  not  to  Is.  9^"^  One 
micjht  stand  on  Old  Testament  ground  and  yet  not  recognize 
Jesus  as  "him  that  should  come." 

Such  was  the  message  to  John.  But  the  message  about  John 
also  helps  us  to  discover  the  thought  of  Jesus  regarding  his  re- 
lation to  former  revelations  made  to  his  people.  No  prophet 
had  arisen,  he  said,  who  was  greater  than  John,  and  yet  John  was 
less  than  the  little  ones  in  the  kingdom  of  God  (Mt.  11^"", 
Lu.  T*-"^^).  Since,  therefore,  he  had  established  that  kingdom 
(Lu.  6"),  one  must  infer  that  he  regarded  his  office  as  essentially 
higher  than  that  of  John  and  the  old  prophets. 

Two  other  notable  sayings  in  the  common  tradition  of  Mat- 
thew and  Luke  give  expression  to  the  same  consciousness.  On 
that  occasion  when  scribes  and  Pharisees  sought  a  sign  from 
Jesus  (Mt.  12^^-",  Lu.  IP**-'^),  he  first  put  his  appearance  to 
that  generation  in  line  with  Jonah's  appearance  to  Nineveh, 
and  then  went  on  to  declare  that  the  men  of  Nineveh  would  con- 
demn the  present  generation  because  they  had  repented  at 
Jonah's  preaching,  and  something  greater  than  Jonah  was  now 
among  them.  In  like  manner  the  Queen  of  the  South  would 
condemn  the  present  generation  for  she  came  from  the  ends 
of  the  earth  to  hear  the  wisdom  of  Solomon,  and  something 
greater  than  Solomon  was  now  among  them.  This  "something'* 
that  is  greater  (TrXelov)  than  prophets  and  wise  men  of  old  is 
not  here  defined,  but  obviously  the  connection  leads  us  to  see 
it  in  the  message  of  Jesus.  The  other  saying  that  belongs  here 
is  that  of  Mt.  W-'\  Lu.  10-^-^":  "Blessed  are  the  eyes  which 


180  THE   PERSON  OF  JESUS 

see  the  things  that  ye  see:  for  I  say  unto  you  that  many  prophets 
and  kings  desired  to  see  the  things  which  ye  see,  and  saw  them 
not,  and  to  hear  the  things  which  ye  hear,  and  heard  them  not." 
This  word  Hke  the  preceding  sets  Jesus  apart  from  the  prophets, 
at  least  in  the  completeness  of  his  message.* 

3.  The  next  datum  in  the  Lucan  order  is  the  title  "  the  Son 
of  Man"  (Mt.  8''-'',  Lu.  9"-'').  This  occurs  elsewhere  in  the 
double  tradition  of  Matthew  and  Luke  four  times,  viz.,  Mt.  16^^"*^, 
2427.  37.  44^  ^^^  jj^  ti^g  Lucan  parallels  16'*,  W-  ^^  and  12'°.  It  is 
impossible  to  determine  from  these  passages  what  content  the 
title  had  for  Jesus.  One  of  them  mentions  his  poverty,  another 
that  he,  in  contrast  to  John  the  Baptist,  ate  and  drank  as  any 
ordinary  man,  and  was  contemptuously  styled  the  friend  of 
publicans  and  sinners.  But  these  throw  no  light  on  the  meaning 
of  the  term.  There  is  no  suggestion  that  Jesus  took  the  name 
because  of  his  poverty  or  because  he  ate  and  drank  in  a  normal 
way  instead  of  appearing  as  a  prophet  of  repentance,  fasting 
and  clad  in  sackcloth;  nor  is  there  any  implied  contrast  between 
the  title  and  the  ch-cumstances  predicated  of  the  Son  of  Man. 
The  other  passages  are  all  eschatological  in  character,  but  do 
not  appear  to  throw  any  specific  light  on  the  title.  They  do 
however  intimate,  though  somewhat  vaguely,  that  he  who  bore 
the  title  believed  that  his  function  from  God  extended  beyond 
the  present  life.  They  do  not,  indeed,  directly  represent  him 
as  the  judge  of  men,  but  since  "the  day"  or  "the  days"  in 
which  one  is  to  be  "taken"  (TrapaXajx^dveaOaC)  and  another 
"left"  are  called  "days  of  the  Son  of  Man,"  it  seems  to  be  im- 
plied that  he  is  in  some  manner  associated  with  judgment.f 
More  than  this  the  source  before  us  does  not  warrant  us  in  saying. 

4.  The  last  passage  in  our  common  source,  according  to  the 
order  of  Luke,  concerns  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  God  (Mt.  IP^-z?^ 
Lu.  10^^"^^).  Unfortunately  the  text  of  this  passage  is  not  al- 
together certain,  and  its  original  setting  is  unknown.  Matthew 
lets  it  follow  the  woes  on  the  Galilean  cities,  a  connection  that 

*  The  passage  concerning  the  guilty  Galilean  cities  (Mt.  11-""-^  Lu.  10'-''^) 
implies  much  the  same  thought  as  the  last  text. 

t  Though  Luke  wavers  between  "day  "  and  "days,"  his  language  is  to  be 
preferred  to  the  term  napova-la  which  Matthew  has  in  24^'-  ^'.  This  is  found 
nowhere  else  in  the  Gospels  except  in  Matthew.  The  "  day  of  the  Son  of  man  " 
may  have  been  formed  in  analogy  with  the  Old  Testament  "day  of  Jehovah." 


THE   PERSON   OF  JESUS  181 

offers  no  explanation  whatever  of  the  ravra  which  the  Father 
had  revealed  to  "babes";  and  Luke's  setting  is  not  better,  for 
in  his  narrative  it  follows  the  report  of  the  Seventy  on  their 
wonderful  works.  But  what  Jesus  gave  thanks  for  was  a  certain 
knouiedge  which  God  had  imparted  to  his  disciples,  not  for  the 
power  to  cast  out  demons.  Whatever  the  specific  occasion  of 
the  thanksgiving  may  have  been,  this  at  least  is  clear,  that  it 
marked  a  decided  advance  in  the  knowledge  of  God  on  the  part 
of  Jesus'  disciples.  It  was  this  progress  that  led  Jesus  to  give 
thanks  to  the  Father,  from  whom,  he  confesses,  the  revelation 
had  ultimately  proceeded. 

Again,  as  to  the  text  of  Mt.  11"^  Lu.  10^',  it  is  difficult  to  decide 
what  stood  in  the  source.  Harnack*  has  pointed  out  that  the 
clause  /cal  ti?  ia-Tiv  6  mo?  el  firj  oTrarrip  does  not  suit  the  con- 
text. The  TrdvTa  which  had  been  delivered  to  Jesus  was  the  full 
knowledge  of  the  Father.  It  was  their  participation  in  this  reve- 
lation by  the  disciples  which  occasioned  the  preceding  words  of 
thanksgiving.  It  is  this  complete  knowledge  of  the  Father  that 
Jesus  claims  in  the  third  clause  of  the  verse  and  of  which  the 
last  clause  treats.  Knowledge  of  the  Son  is  not  the  theme,  but 
knowledge  of  the  Father. 

Furthermore,  the  aim  of  these  words  seems  to  be  theological 
rather  than  practical.  They  affirm  that  no  one  but  the  Father 
knows  the  Son,  and  there  is  no  hint  that  the  Father  shares  this 
knowledge  in  any  way  with  man.  The  assertion  appears  to 
have  no  other  aim  than  to  claim  that  Jesus  can  be  known  by 
the  Father  only,  in  other  words,  to  claim  that  he  is  of  the  same 
nature  with  the  Father,  as  is  done  by  the  author  of  Mt.  28^®. 
Thus  these  words  contrast  in  the  most  striking  manner  with  the 
next  clause,  that  only  the  Son  knows  the  Father.  This  state- 
ment is  wholly  practical,  for  the  Son  has  this  knowledge  to  im- 
part to  others.  The  utterance  is  born  of  a  consciousness  which  is 
the  joy  of  Jesus'  life.  He  knows  the  Father,  and  he  can  impart 
this  knowledge  to  his  disciples.  His  knowledge  then  is  clearly 
not  omniscience,  but  such  knowledge  as  a  man  may  have. 
Jesus  does  not  hint  that  he  has  for  himself  a  knowledge  of  God 
which  cannot  be  imparted.  He  can  share  what  he  has  and  all 
that  he  has  with  those  who  are  receptive.  Thus  the  knowledge 
*  The  Sayings  of  Jesus,  pp.  293-294. 


182  THE   PERSON   OF  JESUS 

of  the  Father  of  which  the  verse  speaks  has  man  as  its  destination, 
while  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  in  the  clause  koI,  ,  ,  6  ira-rrify 
belongs  only  to  the  Father.  Hence  the  clause  appears  to  have 
no  other  purpose  than  to  suggest  a  certain  conception  of  the  nat- 
ure of  Jesus,  and  thus  it  has  a  character  which  does  not  belong 
to  any  unquestioned  utterance  of  the  Master.  We  conclude 
then  that  this  clause  did  not  belong  to  the  ancient  source  of  the 
double  tradition  of  Matthew  and  Luke,  but  was  a  later  develop- 
ment. 

There  remains  in  Mt.  IV,  Lu.  10^^,  the  great  threefold*  claim 
that  Jesus  has  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  Father,  that  he  alone 
has  this  knowledge,  and  that  he  can  impart  it  to  such  as  are  re- 
ceptive. 

We  have  now  considered  those  passages  in  the  ancient  source 
of  the  common  tradition  of  Matthew  and  Luke  that  bear  on  the 
person  of  Jesus,  especially  those  that  claim  a  super-prophetic 
function,  and  now  in  conclusion  will  sum  up  their  content. 
This  is  virtually  done  for  us  in  the  last  passage  that  was  studied. 
For  the  claim  that  Jesus  and  Jesus  alone  has  reached  a  complete 
knowledge  of  the  Father  and  that  he  can  impart  this  knowledge 
to  other  receptive  souls  involves  the  thought  of  all  the  great 
texts  which  have  been  passed  in  review.  One  conscious  of 
possessing  this  knowledge  could  say  that  the  man  who  heard 
and  did  his  words  was  like  one  who  builds  on  the  rock;  he  could 
reasonably  look  for  faith  in  his  word  and  rejoice  when  he  found 
it;  he  could  say  that  confession  or  denial  of  him  was  of  tran- 
scendent importance;  he  not  only  could  but  must  say,  when 
standing  over  against  the  Old  Testament,  that  he  fulfilled  it 
and  also  that  he  did  not  fulfil  it,  for  if  he  was  the  first  to  have 
complete  knowledge  of  the  Father,  then  that  of  former  prophets 
must  of  necessity  have  been  incomplete;  he  could  say  also  that 
the  members  of  his  kingdom  were  greater  than  John  though 
John  was  equal  to  any  of  the  former  prophets;  that  something 
greater  than  Jonah  and  greater  than  Solomon  had  been  mani- 
fested in  his  appearance  and  work,  and  therefore  could  pro- 
nounce his  disciples  blessed  as  compared  with  kings  and  proph- 

*  It  seems  doubtful  whether  the  word  "  my  "  should  be  regarded  as  belong- 
ing to  the  source,  since,  with  the  exception  of  Luke  22-^,  whose  text  is  uncer- 
tain as  we  have  seen,  it  is  confined  wholly  to  Matthew. 


THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  183 

ets  of  old.  Yea,  more,  one  conscious  of  possessing  this  knowl- 
edge of  the  Father  and  of  an  appointment  to  transmit  it  to  others 
might  naturally  believe  that  the  ancient  "day  of  Jehovah'* 
would  at  last  appear  as  the  day  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  the  source  which  we  have  been 
considering  lacked  certain  terms  and  ideas  which,  elsewhere 
and  chiefly  at  a  later  day,  were  regarded  as  furnishing  important 
material  for  the  construction  of  the  doctrine  of  the  person  of 
Jesus.  Thus  it  did  not  have  the  tide  "Son  of  God,"  it  made  no 
allusion  to  the  pre-existence  of  Jesus,  nor  did  it  deal  with  his 
death  and  resurrection.  His  conception  of  his  person  as  com- 
pared, for  example,  with  that  of  the  author  or  final  editor  of 
the  first  Gospel,  is  characterized  by  unity  and  great  simplicity. 

Northampton,  Mass. 
June,  1910. 


XV 

THE  INTEGRITY  OF  SECOND  CORINTHIANS 

By  Marvin  R.  Vincent 

The  question  of  the  integrity  of  this  epistle  has  been  long 
under  discussion.  The  material  for  the  discussion  is  distrib- 
uted over  more  than  a  century,  from  Semler's  Periphrasis  in 
1776.  It  has  been  treated  by  numerous  critics  since  that  date, 
including  Hausrath,  Heinrici,  Pfleiderer,  Clemen,  Klopper, 
Krenkel,  Drescher,  Schmiedel,  Van  Manen,  Lisco,  Jiilicher, 
Weizsacker,  Zahn,  and  by  Rev.  J.  H.  Kennedy  in  The  Expositor, 
October  and  November,  1898. 

The  point  in  which  perhaps,  more  than  any  other,  the  dis- 
cussion has  originated,  and  on  which  all  critics  are  agreed,  is 
the  sharp  contrast  between  the  contents  of  Chaps.  1-9  and  10-13. 
This,  with  other  considerations,  has  suggested  the  conclusion 
that  our  canonical  epistle  consists  of  two  letters,  written  at 
different  times,  and  placed  in  our  Testament  in  inverse  order. 

Three  points  may  be  said  to  be  fairly  established:  1.  That 
before  the  composition  of  the  First  Corinthian  letter,  Paul  wrote 
a  letter  to  the  church  at  Corinth,  which  is  alluded  to  in  I  Cor.  5^, 
but  which  has  been  lost.  2.  That  Paul  made  a  second  visit 
to  Corinth  which  is  not  recorded  in  Acts.  This  appears  from 
II  Cor.  2^;  12";  13^^.  He  declares  his  intention  to  make  a  second 
visit,  in  I  Cor.  4^^"^^;  11^^;  16^-  ^.  This  second  visit  is  conclusively 
demonstrated  by  Weizsacker.  Both  he  and  Schmiedel  effectively 
dispose  of  the  attempt  to  identify  the  "sorrow"  of  II  Cor.  2' 
with  the  "weakness,  fear,  and  trembling"  of  I  Cor.  P.  The  de- 
pression and  self-distrust  described  by  Paul  in  the  latter  passage 
differ  radically  from  the  indignant  grief  resulting  from  defection 
and  insult  on  the  part  of  the  Corinthian  church.  3.  The  con- 
trast already  alluded  to  between  Chaps.  1-9  and  10-13  is  very 

185 


186  THE    INTEGRITY   OF   SECOND   CORINTHIANS 

sharp.  The  tone  in  the  two  sections  is  not  only  different,  but 
opposite.  In  the  former,  Paul  appears  as  reconciled  to  the 
church:  his  language  is  gentle,  commendatory,  forgiving,  and 
his  spirit  joyful.  In  the  latter,  he  is  involved  in  irritating 
complications.  He  is  afraid  that  the  Corinthians  will  repu- 
diate him  and  go  over  to  his  enemies.  He  is  at  swords'  points 
with  the  church.  He  is  defending  his  apostolic  prerogative  and 
his  personal    honor.     Comp.    lO""";    W'';    12"- i^.  20.  21^   ^-1^^ 

Assuming  these  three  points,  it  appears  that  Paul's  first  letter 
failed  of  its  desired  effect.  In  that  letter  he  announced  his  in- 
tention of  soon  visiting  the  church  again.  This  second  visit 
he  made,  but  not  according  to  the  plan  indicated  in  I  Cor.  16^"^. 
According  to  that  plan  he  had  not  intended  to  visit  Corinth  until 
he  should  have  finished  his  work  at  Ephesus:  but  he  broke  off 
that  work,  and  went  at  once  to  Corinth,  and  then  returned  to 
Ephesus. 

During  this  visit  he  was  subjected  to  a  painful  experience, 
for  which  indeed  he  seems  to  have  been  partly  prepared  (I  Cor. 
^17-21^  The  precise  nature  of  this  experience  he  does  not  state. 
He  assumes  that  it  is  known  to  the  church.  It  was,  apparently, 
a  personal  insult  from  an  individual  (II  Cor.  2^;  12"^;  comp, 
y7-i5^  Those  who  have  attempted  to  find  in  the  first  canonical 
letter  the  facts  presupposed  in  the  second,  have  identified  this  per- 
son with  the  incestuous  offender  of  I  Cor.  5;  but  it  is  quite  enough 
to  say  that  the  language  of  II  Cor.  2^""  can  be  applied  to  that 
case  only  by  forcing.  It  is  indeed  urged  that  II  Cor.  10-13 
contains  no  demand  for  the  punishment  of  the  offender  of  the 
second  visit.  Such  a  demand  might  be  implied  in  10*^,  but  it  is 
highly  improbable  that  this  would  be  the  only  form  in  which 
Paul  would  have  alluded  to  that  matter,  if  he  alluded  to  it  at  all ; 
but,  granting  the  omission,  it  is  not  conclusive  against  10-13  as  a 
part  of  the  intermediate  letter,  so  long  as  other  proofs  are  not 
set  aside.  Moreover,  it  is  not  claimed  that  the  intermediate 
letter  is  entire.  If  an  entire  epistle  like  the  one  alluded  to  in 
I  Cor.  5®  could  be  lost,  why  not  parts  of  one  ?  Jiilicher  thinks 
that  10'"  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  nature  of  the  wrong  inflicted 
on  Paul;  but  it  is  not  Paul's  way  either  to  feel  or  to  manifest  such 
violent  emotion  at  a  mere  personal  slur.     Weizsacker  (Apost. 


THE   INTEGRITY  OF   SECOND  CORINTHIANS  187 

Zeitalt.)  effectively  disposes  of  the  identification,  and  a  full 
discussion  to  the  same  effect  appears  in  Schmiedel's  excursus 
on  II  Cor.  2^"",  in  the  Handcommentar. 

From  II  Cor.  7^"",  it  would  appear  that,  immediately  after 
this  second  brief  visit,  Paul  addressed  to  the  Corinthian  church 
a  severe  letter  so  painful  to  the  church  that  the  apostle  was  dis- 
posed, later,  to  regret  his  severity  (II  Cor.  2*  ^■). 

What  of  this  letter?  Is  it  lost,  or  does  it  appear  elsewhere? 
Hausrath,  Pfleiderer,  Clemen,  Schmiedel,  Kennedy  and  Mc- 
Giffert,  hold  that  we  have  this  letter  or  a  part  of  it  in  10-13;  and 
that  these  chapters  consequently  antedate  1-9. 

Certainly  it  cannot  be  maintained  that  the  first  canonical 
epistle  answers  to  the  description  of  the  intermediate  letter  in 
II  Cor.  2\  The  words  "out  of  much  affliction  and  anguish 
of  heart  with  many  tears,"  cannot  be  said  to  characterize  the 
first  episde.  Neither  does  II  Cor.  7*-  ^.  The  visit  which  Paul 
was  contemplating  according  to  II  Cor.  1-^,  and  2^  was  one 
from  which  he  shrank;  while  the  visit  proposed  in  I  Cor.  16  is 
apparently  looked  forward  to  with  pleasure.  On  the  other 
hand,  all  the  passages  just  cited  exactly  fit  II  Cor.  10-13. 

Dr.  Kennedy  has  made  a  strong  case  with  his  three  pairs  of 
passages  in  his  first  article.  In  each  pair  he  shows  that  the  sec- 
tion in  Chaps.  10-13  is  written  about  the  present,  describing  the 
apostle's  present  attitude,  while  the  section  in  Chaps.  1-9  re- 
fers to  past  events  and  feelings.  If  there  is  a  real  parallelism 
between  the  members  of  each  pair,  which  I  see  no  sufficient 
reason  for  doubting,  it  follows  that  10-13  antedates  1-9. 

Assuming  then  the  existence  of  the  intermediate  letter,  and 
the  second  visit,  the  evidence  points  to  the  place  of  the  second 
visit  between  the  first  and  second  canonical  epistles,  and  con- 
sequently to  the  composition  of  the  intermediate  epistle  between 
the  second  visit  and  the  second  canonical  epistle.  Even  Hein- 
rici,  who  denies  the  partition  of  the  second  epistle,  admits  that 
the  assumption  of  a  second  visit  bears  on  the  second  epistle  only 
in  case  it  took  place  between  two  canonical  letters.  II  Cor.  V^ 
must  have  been  written  before  the  second  and  after  the  first 
epistle.  The  plan  referred  to  in  that  passage  could  have  been 
communicated  only  after  the  second  visit;  and  that  this  was 
actually  the  case  may  be  inferred  from  II  Cor.  1'^  and  2'.     Fur- 


188  THE   INTEGRITY  OF  SECOND  CORINTHIANS 

ther,  II  Cor.  13^  seems  to  contain  a  definite  statement  that  the 
second  visit  had  preceded  the  second  canonical  letter. 

The  sharp  change  of  tone  after  the  close  of  Chap.  9  cannot, 
be  explained  by  a  change  of  disposition,  or  by  distractions 
(IP®),  or  by  new  and  unfavorable  tidings  (see  Jiilicher).  None 
of  these  would  justify  a  letter  so  contradictory;  and  besides,  as 
Dr.  Kennedy  observes,  if  we  are  to  take  II  Cor.  10-13  as  indi- 
cating the  gravity  of  the  situation  which  arose  in  consequence 
of  this  new  development,  then  these  later  tidings  must  have 
caused  the  complete  destruction  of  all  the  hopes  which  had  been 
excited  by  the  result  of  Titus's  mission,  and  have  showed  the 
state  of  things  at  Corinth  to  be  worse  than  ever.  It  is  very 
strange  that  Paul  should  never  have  mentioned  or  alluded  to 
such  momentous  news.  Strange  that  he  should  have  sent  to  the- 
rebellious  church  the  commendation  of  1-9,  and  then  have  imme- 
diately appended  the  censure  without  explanation,  annexing  it  to 
a  heartfelt  thanksgiving  to  God  simply  by  a  connecting  ^c,  "and, 
strangest  of  all,  should  have  fallen  back  on  a  declaration  which 
he  had  made  before  the  mission  of  Titus,  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened in  the  meantime"  (13^).  The  introduction  of  such  an  en- 
tirely contradictory  line  of  thought  merely  by  the  particle  ^e  is 
strange,  on  the  assumption  that  the  entire  letter  is  continuous. 
No  antithesis  appears  to  avTo^  Be  ijo)  HavXo^.  Ae  expresses  con- 
nective opposition.  It  does  not  surrender  the  sense  of  connec- 
tion even  when  it  introduces  something  opposite.  Oftener  in 
the  New  Testament  than  in  classical  Greek,  it  is  a  mere  mark 
of  transition  at  the  beginning  of  a  sentence. 

Nor  is  the  sharp  change  explained  by  the  change  from  address- 
ing a  repentant  and  submissive  church  to  addressing  a  rebellious 
minority.  The  v/jb€i<i  indicates  the  same  class  of  persons  as 
those  to  whom  he  had  been  all  along  speaking.  This  is  well 
brought  out  by  Schmiedel,  Handcomm.  A  minority  calling  for 
the  words  of  10-13  is  surely  not  indicated  by  the  strong  and  uni- 
versal feeling  on  the  reception  of  Paul's  letter  displayed  in  1-9. 
(See  TrdvTcov^  7^^-  ^^y 

A  review  of  the  evidence  appears  to  me  to  justify  Holtzmann's 
words:  "The  second  Corinthian  letter  will  no  longer  hold  to- 
gether." I  believe  that  Chaps.  1-9  and  10-13  represent  two 
different  letters;  that  10-13  is  the  earlier  of  the  two,  and  that  in  it 


THE    INTEGRITY   OF   SECOND   CORINTHIANS  189 

we  have  a  part  at  least  of  the  letter  written  shortly  after  Paul's 
second  visit  to  Corinth,  and  before  the  second  canonical  epistle. 
This  conclusion  does  not  affect  the  question  of  Pauline  author- 
ship. It  merely  asserts  a  displacement  or  rearrangement,  which 
may  have  been  the  result  either  of  accident  or  of  design  subse- 
quently to  the  apostolic  age.  "Nothing,"  as  Professor  Mc- 
Giffert  remarks,  "would  be  easier  than  for  two  comparatively 
brief  epistles  to  be  joined  together  and  counted  as  one,  over 
against  the  larger  epistle  which  we  know  as  First  Corinthians; 
and  this  would  be  particularly  easy  if  one  of  the  epistles  lacked 
the  formal  introduction  which  most  of  Paul's  epistles  bore." 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 
April,  1910. 


XVI 

O  I      "A  T  a  K  T  0  I 

(1  Thess.  5") 
By  James  Everett  Frame 

The  Christian  community  of  the  seaport  town  of  Thessa- 
lonica  was  made  up  chiefly  if  not  wholly  of  Gentiles  and  that 
too  workingmen  (I  4"  ^-j  II  3®  ^•).  It  was  small  and  poor.  To 
be  sure,  we  hear  (Acts  17^)  of  fivvaLKcov  rcov  Trpcoroyv  ovk  oXiyai, 
but  not  of  patronesses  like  Prisca  (1  Cor.  16^^,  Rom.  16^)  and 
Nympha  (Col.  4^^  B).  It  is  true  that  in  the  earlier  days  Jason 
(Acts  17^  ^•)  had  opened  his  house  to  Paul,  but,  as  II  3^  seems  to 
indicate,  had  received  therefor  some  remuneration.  And  while 
later  on  the  names  of  Aristarchus  (Acts  20*,  27',  Col.  4'",  Phm.  24) 
and  Secundus  (Acts  20*)  appear,*  we  learn  of  no  such  patrons 
in  Thessalonica  as  Gains  of  Corinth  (Rom.  16'^),  Philemon  of 
Colossae  (Phm.  2),  and  the  husband  of  Prisca. f  In  fact,  Paul 
found  it  necessary  to  support  himself  by  manual  labor  while  he 
preached  in  Thessalonica  in  order  not  to  put  a  financial  burden 
on  his  converts  individually  or  collectively  (I  2",  II  3^  ^•),  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  received  at  the  time  aid  from 
Philippi.  X 

But  although  the  community  was  small  and  poor,  made  up, 
as  were  most  of  the  early  Christian  assemblies,  of  the  humbler 
classes  (cf.  I  Cor.  1'^  ^•),  yet  it  was  rich  in  the  possession  of  the 

*  It  is  not  certain  that  Gaius  (Acts  19-')  and  Demas  (Phm.  24)  were  Thessa- 
lonians.     The  Jason  of  Rom.  16-'  may  be  the  one  of  Acts  17^. 

t  Compare  the  names  in  Rom.  16;   (to  Ephesus?) 

J  The  Philippians  were  in  the  habit  of  aiding  Paul  as  Ph.  4'*  shows:  You 
sent  to  help  me  both  (while  I  was)  in  Thessalonica  and  repeatedly  {dva^  Kai  dlt 
as  1  Thess.  2'**)  (while  I  was  elsewhere). 

191 


192  "the    loafers/     1    THESS.    5" 

Spirit.*  The  praise  which  Paul  lavishes  on  the  Thessalonians 
as  a  whole  (e.  g.  I  1^  ^-j  3^  II  1^  ^•)  becomes  even  more  remarka- 
ble when  we  remember  the  social  status  of  the  community,  its 
poverty,  and  the  persecutions  it  was  compelled  continuously  to 
undergo,  and. above  all  the  concern  the  believers  felt  at  Paul's 
failure  to  return.  It  would  appear  that  the  unbelieving  Jews 
of  Thessalonica — the  original  instigators  of  trouble  but  not  the 
official  persecutors — had,  after  the  enforced  departure  of  Paul, 
been  scattering  broadcast  the  insinuation  that  the  Apostle  was 
but  another  example  of  the  common  itinerant  preacher  or  priest, 
deluded,  immoral,  and  deceiving,  who  engaged  in  cajoling  speech 
to  win  his  hearers,  who  used  the  Gospel  as  a  foil  to  cover  selfish 
gain,  and  demanded  suitable  honors  to  be  paid  him.  Doubt- 
less also  they  interpreted  his  failure  to  return  as  evidence  of  the 
truth  of  their  assertions.  The  converts  must  have  been  dis- 
turbed by  these  rumors  and  anxious.  Paul  likewise,  when  he 
learns  the  situation  from  Timothy,  was  greatly  concerned,  as 
is  seen  from  the  fact  that  he  devotes  the  first  three  chapters  of 
the  First  Epistle  to  a  defense  of  his  visit  (especially  2^"^^),  and  to 
his  failure  to  return  (2^^-3*'),  praying  finally  (a"-'^')  that  the  Lord 
would  direct  his  way  to  them.  But  notwithstanding  the  poverty 
of  the  community,  the  persecutions,  and  the  temptation  to  suspect 
the  motives  of  Paul,  the  Thessalonians  as  a  whole  stood  fast  in 
the  Lord,  as  the  distinctly  favorable  report  of  Timothy  (I  3®) 
and  the  indications  of  the  First  Epistle  in  general  make  clear. 

There  were  indeed  some  lacks  in  their  faith  (I  3®-  ^°),  im- 
portant, but,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  tactful  way  in  which 
the  exhortations  are  qualified  (I  4*"^-  ^-  ^°,  5"),  not  crucial.  To 
the  perfecting  of  these  lacks,  the  last  two  chapters  of  I  are  di- 
rected. Three  points  are  conspicuous.  With  some  of  the  con- 
verts, the  temptation  to  sexual  aberration  (I  4^"*)  seems  to  have 
been  keen,  due  no  doubt  either  to  the  allurements  of  a  port  or  to 
the  influence  of  pagan  cults. f     Still  it  is  not  improbable  that  the 

*  It  was  owing  to  a  direct  request  from  Corinth  that  we  are  in  possession 
of  the  discussion  of  spiritual  gifts  in  1  Cor.  12-14.  In  Thessalonica,  it  is 
competent  to  assume  a  similar  enthusiasm,  even  though  it  be  referred  to  only 
in  I  5'8-2^ 

t  Note  the  cult  of  the  /cci/Sipoi  or  Kd^eipoi;  and  see  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays^ 
257  ff.,  and  Bloch  in  Roscher,  1897,  article  Megaloi  Theoi,  col.  2522-2541. 
Indeed  the  charge  of  aKadapaia.  made  against  Paul  (I  2*)  may  have  been 


"the    loafers/'    1    THESS.    5'^  193 

exhortation  to  a  consecration  not  simply  religious  but  moral 
(I  4^"^)  may  have  been  in  part  at  least  prophylactic*  The 
other  two  main  difficulties  presupposed  by  the  First  Epistle 
centre  about  the  belief  in  the  nearness  of  the  Parousia.  In 
I  413-18  an  entirely  new  matter  is  discussed.  (There  is  no  otSare 
here  as  in  5^).  In  the  interval  between  the  departure  of  Paul 
and  the  writing  of  I,  some  person  or  persons  had  died,  and  the 
question  emerged  as  to  the  advantage  of  the  survivors  over  the 
dead  at  the  Parousia.  Paul  replies  tactfully  that  both  classes 
stand  on  the  same  level  of  advantage  (cf.  afj,a  avv,  simul  cum 
4",  5^").  Then  too  the  ancient  query  as  to  times  and  seasons 
reappeared.  Into  this,  however,  Paul  refuses  to  enter,  urging 
that  the  believers  were  already  accurately  informed,  and  turning 
the  edge  of  their  curiosity  by  reminding  them  that  the  Parousia 
was  for  judgment  upon  the  wicked  (I  5*"").t  For  a  few,  how- 
ever, and  this  for  our  purpose  is  important,  the  belief  in  the  im- 
mediate coming  of  Christ  had  stirred  up  serious  complications. 
Even  when  Paul  was  with  them,  he  had  been  obliged  to  command 
the  brethren  'qavy^d^etv  koI  Trpdaaeiv  ra  tSca  koI  ip/jud^ea-dat  rat? 
■)(epa\v  vfioov  (I  4")  or  more  specifically  et  rt?  ov  OeXei  ip/xd^eaOac 
firjSe  ia-Oierco  (II  3^**).  These  commands  indicate  that  the  views 
of  some  the  of  brethren  touching  the  Parousia  had  unsettled 
their  minds  and  had  led  them  to  become  meddlesome  and  idle. 
The  situation  grew  worse  after  Paul's  departure  as  the  exhorta- 
tions of  I  4"  ^-  and  5"  intimate,!  and  became  acute  in  the  inter- 
val between  the  writing  of  I  and  II,  as  is  seen  by  the  fact  that  II 
is  concerned  solely  with  two  problems,  the  Parousia  (P-2") 
and  the  Idlers  (3^'^*).  While  it  is  quite  true  that  Paul  does  not 
state  in  so  many  words  that  the  idleness  in  the  community  was 
either  simple  inertia  due  to  no  specific  cause  or  that  it  was  di- 
rectly the  result  of  the  excitement  induced  by  the  belief  that  the 
Lord  was  coming  soon,  still  the  latter  hypothesis  is  distinctly 

suggested  to  the  subtle  Jews  by  the  'foul  orgies '  (Lft.)  of  some  such  cult  as 
the  Cabiri. 

*  Theodore  Mops,  {aptid  Swete  II,  37)  with  plausibility  suggests  a  connec- 
tion between  I  4''*  and  ol  dffOevels  (I  5"):  de  illis  qui  jornicatione  detur- 
pabantur. 

t  ol  6\iy6\pvxoi.  (I  5'*)  naturally  refers  to  those  who  were  impatient  of 
the  Parousia. 

X  As  we  shall  endeavor  to  prove,  ol  S.TaKToi  (I  5")  refers  specifically  to  the 
fiT]  epya^d/j-evoi  (I  4"). 


194  "the    loafers,"    1    THESS.    5" 

convincing  in  the  light  of  I  4"  ^-  and  especially  of  II  where,  as 
already  noted,  the  two  points  considered  are  Parousia  and  Idle- 
ness. Lightfoot  (ad  I  4^^)  is  thus  certainly  correct  when  he  re- 
marks: "the  supposition  is  so  natural  as  to  commend  itself,  and 
we  are  not  without  instances  of  the  disturbing  effects  of  such  an 
unchastened  anticipation  in  later  ages  of  the  Church."  "  Immer 
ist  es,"  says  E.  von  Dobschutz  (Die  Urchristlichen  Gemeinden, 
1902,  72)  "wie  im  Thessalonich  die  Flucht  vor  der  Arbeit  die 
als  entscheidendes  Moment  uns  entgegentritt." 

The  purpose  of  this  note  is  to  prove,  if  possible,  that  oi  araicTOL 
in  I  5^*  is  to  be  translated  straightway  "  the  loafers."  It  might 
seem  necessary  first  of  all  to  consider  the  possible  meanings  of 
the  group  of  words  which  in  the  New  Testament  occur  only 
in  I  and  II,  namely  cnaKrelv  (II  3^),  araKrco^  (II  3^-  ^^)  and 
draKTOf  (I  5").  From  Suidas  (on  draKTrj/xa,  dra^ia)  and  from 
the  passages  gathered  by  Wetstein  (1752  II  306)  and  Kypke 
(1755  I  345),  we  could  learn  (cf.  also  Liddell  and  Scott)  that 
cnaKreiv  and  its  cognates  are  originally  military  words,  as 
Chrysostom  had  already  noted.  The  ra^t?  is  that  of  troops  in 
battle  array  or  of  soldiers  at  their  post  of  duty.  By  a  natural 
extension  of  usage,  these  words  come  to  describe  irregularities 
of  various  sorts  such  as  "intermittent"  fevers,  "disorderly" 
crowds,  "unrestrained"  pleasures  and  the  like;  and  by  a  still 
further  extension  of  meaning,  these  words  designate  a  disorderly 
life  in  general.  But  since  Milligan's  convincing  note  (Comm. 
on  Thess.,  1908,  Note  G,  152-154),  in  which  not  only  the  classical 
but  the  later  Greek  usage  including  that  of  the  Greek  Bible* 
and  papyri  are  examined,  it  is  unnecessary  to  do  more  than  call 
attention  again  to  some  papyri.  Dr.  Milligan  notes  first  of  all 
P.  Oxy.  275  (dated  in  the  13th  year  of  Nero,  i.  e.,  66  a.  d.)  where 
Trypho  apprentices  his  son  to  the  weaver  Ptolemaus.  Among 
other  stipulations   of   the   contract,   it   is   said:  ovic  e^ovro^  ru> 

*  In  the  LXX,  we  have  6.TaKTo^  dp6iJLos  3  Mace.  1'";  Symmachus  has  draKTos 
in  De.  32'",  Ezek.  122",  and  drdKTws  4  Reg.  9^"  (of  Jehu's  driving).  We  may- 
add  Test.  XII,  Naph.  2^:  ovT(j}soSi>€<TTa}cravTiKvaixovTrdvTaraepyavfjLC>vii>Td^ei, 
eh  dyadbv  iv  (pd^tfi,  Kal  fjLT]div  draKTOv  Troi^enyre  iv  Karatppovrjaei,  ixr)5k  e^oi  KaipoO 
a&rov;  also  the  only  cases  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers  (cf.  Goodspeed's  Iiulex 
Patristicus),  1  Clem.  40",  ovk  eiV^  ij  drtiKTws  dXX'  cjpiafiivois  Kaipoh  Kal  icpais,  and 
Diog.  9'  drd/cTois  (pvpais  "  unrestrained  impulses  "  (cf .  Plutarch  de  lib.  ednc. 
7  p.  5  A,  noted  by  Wetstein,  draKroi.  rjdoval). 


"the   loafers,"    1    THESS.    5''  195 

^pix^wvt  airotTirav  tov  iraiha  cnro  rov  JlroXefiaiov  ^i-GXpL  rov  tov 
Xpovov  TrXrjpwOrjvai  (i.  e.,  the  contracted  period  of  apprenticeship), 
6cra<i  he  iav  iv  tovtq)  (the  period  stipulated)  uTaKT-qarj  (the  boy) 
rjfxepai),  iirl  Ta<;  caa<i  avrbv  Trape^erai  (i.  e.,  Trypho)  fiera  tov  'x^povou 
rj  aTTOTeiaciTa)  €KdaTr]<i  ■^fie'pa^  apyvptov  8pa')(iJi,r]v  fiiav  /ctX.* 
Grenfell  and  Hunt  (Oxy.  Papyri  II  262  ff.)  translate  aTaKTrjarj 
"fails  to  attend";  Milligan,  "plays  the  truant";  the  present 
writer  {Amer.  Journ.  TheoL,  VIII,  1904,  614  ff.),  in  referring  to 
this  papyrus,  suggested:  "is  idle." 

Dr.  Milligan  next  alludes  to  P.  Oxy.  725  (a.  d.  183),  where, 
(1.  35  ff.)  speaking  again  of  a  weaver's  apprentice,  it  reads: 
apyqcreL  Se  6  Tral'i  et9  Xoyov  ioprcov  kut  eVo?  r)/jL€'pa<s  eiKoai,  ov8€vb<i 
eKKpovofievov  rcov  /xiaOwv  tovtcov  a^'  ov  xpovov  iav  X^PVyV^V  /^^o'^oV, 
iav  Be  irXeiova^  tovtcov  apyrjarj  \fi  aa]6€v^ar]  r)  araKTrjcrri  r]  Si 
dWrjv  acTiav  rjfji,€pa<i  iirl  ra?  La-a<;  iirdvayKe';  Trape^ei  avrov  6  ^la-yypioov 
Tft)  BiSaa-KaXM  •^/jiepa'i.  "  The  boy  may  be  idle  20  days  yearly  on 
account  of  the  festivals,  nothing  being  knocked  off  from  those 
wages  from  the  time  when  payment  of  wages  is  granted;  but  if 
he  is  idle  more  days  than  these,  [or  is  sjick,  or  loafs,  or  for  any 
other  reason,  Ischyrion  shall  be  obliged  to  produce  him  for  the 
teacher  for  an  equal  number  of  days."  Grenfell  and  Hunt 
translate  araKTijo-rj  apparently  "is  disobedient.'  Milligan  (1.  c. 
154)  does  not  happen  to  give  a  translation  of  this  word.  The 
analogy  of  P.  Oxy.  275  quoted  above,  and  the  similarity  but  not 
identity  of  dpiyeiv  and  draKrelv,  the  latter  implying  neglect,  sug- 
gest the  translation  "  loaf." 

In  this  connection,  attention  should  be  called  to  P.  Oxy. 
724  (a.  d.  155)  which  treats  of  apprenticeship  to  a  short-hand 
writer  (ar}fi€io'ypa(f)6'i),  where  (1.  12  ff.)  it  reads:  ovfc  i^6vT0<;  /xol 
ivTO<i  TOV  xpovov  TOV  TTUiSa  cnrocTTrav,  Trapap-evet  Be  crol  fieTO,  tov 
Xpovov  6aa<i  iav  apyrjcrr]  r}fjL€pa<i  rj  prjva^.  dpyelv  and  UTaKTelv  are 
in  contracts  practically  synonymous  (cf.  P.  Oxy.  731, 1.  12,  where 
dpyeiv  is  used). 

Finally,  in  a  note  to  the  present  writer  dated  Feb.  12,  1910, 
Dr.  Milligan  draws  attention  "to  a  still  more  striking  instance 
of  aTaKTeco  =  ' to   be  idle'  than  the   Oxyrhyncus  passages.     In 

*  This  contract  of  apprenticeship  has  been  recently  edited  again  with  a 
new  translation  and  notes  by  Milligan  in  his  admirable  handbook:  Greek 
Papyn,  1910,  54  ff. 


196  "the  loafers,"  1  thess.  5^* 

BGU  1125*  (13  B.  c.)  — a  contract  — the  words  occur  a?  8e 
iav  apra/crrjaTji  rjl  appcoa-Trjar^L.  Evidently  uTaKTijarjc  is  to  be  read, 
with  a  confusion  in  the  writer's  mind  with  apry^a-qL  (so  Schubart)." 
From  this  conspectus  of  usage,  it  is  manifest  that  we  are  justi- 
fied in  translating  araKreiv  either  generally  "to  be  disorderly" 
or  specifically,  as  in  the  papyri  quoted,  "to  be  idle"  or  better, 
to  distinguish  from  ap'yeiv,  "to  loaf."  With  this  result,  let  us 
turn  to  I  5"  where,  as  the  definite  articles  indicate,  three  well- 
known  classes  are  mentioned,  ol  araKTOi,  oi  oXi'yoyjrvxoi  and  oi 
aaOeveU.  These  we  have  already  identified  in  passing  (v.  supra 
Notes  p,  193)  with  respectively  the  fir]  ipya^ofievoi  of  I  4", 
the  impatient  of  the  Parousia  (suggested  by  I  4^^-5")  and 
those  tempted  to  immorality  (I  4^"®).  At  first  sight  however 
it  is  not  clear  what  the  ra^i?  is  which  araKToc  implies;  hence 
various  interpretations  are  adduced.  (1)  Chrysostom  takes 
ol  draKTOL  generally  as  oc  irapa  to  tw  6e^  Sokovv  'Trpdrrovre'? , 
TrdpTe'i  ol  afxaprdvovTCi,  the  reveler,  the  drunkard,  the  covet- 
ous. He  observes,  as  we  have  said,  that  dTa/cro<i  is  a  military 
term:  "For  the  order  of  the  church  is  more  harmonious  than  the 
military  order.  .  .  .  They  walk  not  orderly  in  their  ranks,  but 
out  of  line."  (2)  Others,  seeing  a  reference  to  ol  druKrot  in 
I  4"  and  especially  in  II  3®  ^-  assume  that  the  rd^i^  is  the  general 
norm  of  Christian  conduct.  Bornemann  for  example  (ad 
5")  remarks  "Die  Unordentlichen,  diejenigen  die  ein  ungeord- 
netes  ungeregeltes  unstetes  Leben  fuhren,  sei  es  in  Miissiggang, 
sei  es  in  Zerfahrenheit,  oder  die  sich  in  die  allgemeinen  Ord- 
nungen  und  Regeln  christlich-sittlichen  Lebens  in  Haus  und 
Gemeinde  nicht  schickten."  More  concisely  E.  von  Dobschiitz 
(ad  5"):  "Hier  ist  Miissiggang,  Dreinreden  in  fremde  Angele- 
genheiten,  exaltiertes  Wesen  gemeint."  (3)  Theodoret,  how- 
ever, had  already  observed:  rois  ctTdKrois  tov<;  dpyia  a-v^SvTa^ 
ovTco<;  eKoXeaev;  and  Ephraem  Syrus  (Armenian  commentary 
on  Paul  translated  into  Latin  by  the  Mechitarist  Fathers,  Venice, 
1893):  corripite  ait  inquietos  qui  otiosi  ambulant  et  nihil  faciunt 
nisi  inania.  Ellicott  similarly  restricts  the  reference  when  he 
notes  (ad  5"):  "Here  the  precise  reference  is  probably  to  the 
neglect  of  duties  and  callings  into  which  the  Thessalonians  had 
lapsed  owing  to  their  mistaken  views  of  the  Lord's  coming." 
So  also  Milligan:  "In  the  present  passage  (5"),  the  special  refer- 


"the    loafers,"    1    THESS.    5**  197 

ence  would  seem  to  be  to  the  idleness  and  neglect  of  duty  which 
characterized  certain  members  of  the  Thessalonian  Church  in 
view  of  the  shortly-expected  Parousia." 

One  or  other  of  these  three  views  is  held  by  the  commentators 
and  the  translation  of  araKTov'i  is  as  a  rule  literal;  e.  g.,  inordi- 
natos  (also  delinquentcs,  incompositos,  indisci'plmatos  (see  Poole, 
Syn.  Crit.  ad  loc.)  inquietos  as  Vulgate  and  Old  Latin,  offen- 
dentes,  as  Syriac);  or,  in  the  English  version,  "the  disorderly" 
as  AV^'s-  RV.  (also  "unquyete  men"  Wick.,  "the  unquiet" 
Rhem.,  "them  that  are  unruly,"  AV  and  six  remaining  versions 
according  to  Ellicott,  Thcss.  156).* 

It  is  evident  that  the  real  question  at  issue  is,  granting  a  rela- 
tion between  ol  aratcroi  (I  5")  and  the  exhortation  (I  4""^^), 
whether  ol  aruKroL  refers  generally  to  the  firj  rja-vxa^ovre^,  the 
7rpdaarovT€<;  ra  erepcov,  and  the  firj  ipja^ofxevoi — in  which  case 
01  draKTOi  should  be  translated  "the  disorderly";  or  whether 
01  araKTOL  refers  specifically  to  the  firj  ipya^ofxevot — in  which 
case  it  should  be  translated  "  the  loafers."  A  brief  examination 
of  I  4*  ^•,  5^-  ^^  5^^  ^-y  5"  may  help  us  to  a  decision. 

In  I  4^  ^-  Paul  states  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  write  about  love 
to  the  Christians,  for  the  readers  are  already  exercising  this 
virtue.  Then  in  v,  ^'^'',  with  8e  introducing  a  new  point,  he  pro- 
ceeds not,  as  we  should  expect,  with  irapa/caXovfjiev  Se  vp,a<;, 
aSeXcfjOL,  <f)iXoTLfieta9ai  k.t.X.,  but  with  TrapaKaXovfiev  Be  vfia.<;, 
aheX^oi,  irepiaaeveiv  jxaWov  Koi  (faXoT.  k.t.X.  The  point  is 
that  just  as  in  v.  ^  where  he  interrupts  the  run  of  his  exhorta- 
tion by  a  tactful  statement  that  the  addressed  are  already  doing 
what  he  is  about  to  ask  and  exhort  them  to  do  and  suddenly 
changes  to  iva  irepta-a-evrjre  fxaXXov,  so  here,  after  observing  that 
they  are  loving  the  brethren  at  home  and  throughout  all  Mace- 
donia, he  bids  them  to  abound  the  more.  Clearly,  as  most  in- 
terpreters opine,  this  TrepiaaeveLV  is  a  irepiarcreveiv  iv  rat  a'^airav 
aXXrjXom.  jNIoreover,  the  koX  after  fidXXov,  which  grammat- 
ically  co-ordinates  Trepia-aeveiv  with  the  three  main  infinitives 

*  The  rendering  '  the  disorderly  '  is  favored  by  Ellicott,  John  Lillie  (whose 
exceptionally  excellent  work,  The  Epistles  of  Paul  to  the  Thessalonians,  New 
York,  American  Bible  Union,  1856,  has  been  too  frequently  neglected), 
Twevtieth  Century  Neiv  Testament,  etc.  Wcizsiicker  has  'die  Unordentlichen.' 
Dr.  Vincent,  Word  Studies,  IV,  1900  ad  loc.  prefers  "them  that  are  unruly," 
as  "more  vigorous  and  less  stilted  than  'the  disorderly.'" 


198  "the  loafers/'  1  thess.  5" 

^avx^'^^i'V,  Trpdaa-etv,  and  ipyd^eadaL  (for  it  is  probable  that 
^ikorifjielcrOai  is  to  be  taken  solely  with  i^crvx^d^eiv) ,  really  intro- 
duces the  specific  points  at  which  (f>iXa8e\(f)ia  needs  perfect- 
ing. The  statement  indicates  not  that  Paul  is  setting  one  part 
of  the  community  over  against  the  other,  for  the  community 
as  a  whole  is  addressed,  but  only  that  he  recognizes  tactfully 
the  incompleteness  at  certain  points  of  love  to  the  brethren. 
That  is  to  say — and  the  point  is  important — the  exhortation  in 
V.  ''"'-^'  like  that  in  v.  """^  has  to  do  with  (jiiXaSeXcjiLa. 
Furthermore,  while  the  three  main  infinitives  are  themselves 
in  simple  co-ordination  (/cal . . .  Kai),  the  logical  relation  appears 
to  be  that  the  first  ■qa-vxd^^tv  expresses  itself  in  the  second  and 
third,  7rpd(T(T€iv  to,  Xha  and  ipyd^eaOai.  But  the  meaning  of 
rjavxd^uv  is  problematic,  (a)  Some  commentators,  not  uninflu- 
enced by  such  passages  as  that  of  Plato,  Re'p.  496  D,  where  the 
philosopher  retires  from  public  affairs  and  pursues  philosophy 
'qav')(^{.av  e^wy  koX  to,  avrov  irpdrrcov  (cf.  also  Dio  Cass.  60"^  T-r]v 
r)av')(^[av  d<ya)V  koI  to,  iavrov  Trpdrrcov),  find  in  rjav^d^eiv  a 
political  reference.  They  conjecture  that  some  of  the  laborers 
(who  were  not  of  course  philosophers)  having  dropped  their 
work  were  proclaiming  in  the  market  places  and  elsewhere  their 
notions  about  the  Parousia  and  were  meddling  in  public  affairs, 
with  the  result  of  bringing  the  Christian  body  as  a  whole  into 
disfavor  with  the  Gentiles.*  Paul's  exhortation  is  that  they  retire 
from  public  affairs  and  so  mind  their  own  business  and  attend 
to  their  own  work.  The  reference  in  v.  ^^  to  tou?  e|&)  and 
/u.TjSevo'i ,  if  masculine,  might  seem  to  countenance  this  opinion. 
(b)  Other  expositors,  with  greater  probability  in  view  of  the 
eschatological  interest  of  I  (not  to  speak  of  II),  discover  in 
r)(Tvxd^eLv  a  specific  religious  connotation. f  They  assume  that 
the  tranquillity  of  spirit  enjoined  presupposes  a  state  of  feverish 
excitement  due  to  the  expectancy  of  the  immediate  coming  of 
Christ.  As  a  result  of  this  excitement,  these  brethren,  unlike 
the  oXtyo-xjrvxot  (I  5")  whose  impatience  of  the  Parousia  did  not 
bring  them  into  trouble,  began  to  be  meddlesome  and  idle.  Of 
none  of  them  could  it  be  said  with  La,  3^^  vTrofMevel  Kal  '^av^d^ei 

*  So  in  general  Zwingli,   Schott,   Koppe,   Findlay  apparently,   and  von 
Dobschiitz  clearly. 

t  So  Lunemann,  EUicott  and  others. 


"the    loafers,"    1    THESS.    5"  199 

ek  TO  crcoT-qpiov  Kvpiov.  *  This  meddlesomeness  had  to  do  not 
with  public  affairs,  with  the  Gentiles,  but  with  church  affairs, 
with  the  Christians, t  as  the  context  (vv.  **""^^  and  w.  ^-loa-^^ 
which  touches  the  imperfections  of  the  brotherhood,  indicates. 
Furthermore,  this  meddlesomeness  is  not  so  much  the  cause  as 
the  result  of  firj  ipyd^ea-dai  as  the  iva  clause  (v.  *^)  seems  to  inti- 
mate. This  clause  states  the  purpose  X  of  irapaKaXovfxev 
(v.  "''),  namely  (1)  that  the  Thessalonians  might  conduct  them- 
selves in  a  becoming  fashion§  (not  "in  the  eyes  of,"  coram,  but) 
with  an  eye  to  the  judgment  of  the  Gentiles  (7r/3o<?  tois  e^co  as  Col. 
4^),  thus  preventing  the  Gentile  employers  of  labor  from  judging 
the  Christians  as  a  whole  by  the  neglectful  idleness  of  a  few;  and 
(2)  that  they  might  have  need  of  nothing  (or  no  one),  ||  the  point 
being  that  the  brethren  ought  to  support  themselves  by  labor 
and  not  be  financially  dependent  on  the  group.^  In  other  words, 
the  lack  of  tranquillity  of  mind  led  to  idleness,  idleness  to  poverty, 
poverty  to  demand  for  support  from  the  brethren,  and  demand 
for  support  to  meddling  in  the  affairs  of  the  organization. 

How  far  this  idleness  with  its  resulting  meddlesomeness  went 
while  Paul  was  in  Thessalonica  cannot  be  determined.  That 
it  was  present  is  evident  from  the  command  w^hich  Paul  then  gave 
(cf.  V.  "  /ca^cb?  v/xlv  irap-qy^etXafiev  and  II  3*"),  namely  'qcrv)(^d^eLV 
.  .  .  ipjd^ea-OaL.  That  it  increased  after  his  departure  is  like- 
wise evident  both  from  the  fact  that  he  repeats  the  command  in 
the  form  of  an  exhortation,  adding  the  purpose  clause  (vv.  ^"''-^2^ 
and    from   the  indications  of  I  5^^"".     Assuming  still  a  con- 

*  For  the  majority  of  the  brethren,  the  Parousia  was  a  sanction  for  viroixov^ 
(I  P). 

t  So  Flatt,  1829,  "wohl  ";  cf.  Estius  {ajmd  Poole)  ut  quisque  de  suo  habeat 
unde  vivat,  nee  otio  suo  fratribus  oneri  sit  et  infidelibus  scandalo. 

X  In  taking  iVa  as  the  object  of  wapriyyeiXatiev,  von  Dobschiitz  breaks 
away  needlessly  from  exegetical  tradition. 

§  Grotius  notes  I  Cor.  14*"  eiJo'xiJM^j'ws  Kal  Kara  rd^Lv. 

II  Perinde  est  sive  nrjdevbi  in  neut.  gen.  sive  in  masc.  accipias.  (Vorstius 
apud  Poole).  Nor  does  it  matter  logically,  for  in  either  case  the  allusion  is 
to  begging  from  the  Church  as  in  general  Theodoret,  Estius,  Lightfoot  and 
others  have  surmised.  Vulgate  gives  nullitis  aliquid.  Even  those  who  find 
in  ija-vxd^eiv  k.t.X.  a  reference  to  public  affairs,  and  who  incline,  in  view  of 
Toi>s  €|w,  to  take  jxrjdevbs  masc,  do  not  always  restrict  /MTidevbs  to  Gentiles  (cf. 
von  Dobschiitz). 

^  That  the  iVa  clause  has  in  mind  chiefly  if  not  solely  ipyd^tadai  is  suggested 
not  only  by  the  contents  of  the  clause  but  also  by  II  3'°. 


200  "the    loafers,"    1    THESS.    5^* 

nection  between  ol  draKToc  (5")  and  the  brethren  intended  in 
4",  we  must  admit  that  the  exhortation  (5^^'^^)  to  recognize 
the  worth  of  (etSeVat  as  in  4*)  to  1/9  KOTnoivra'i  iv  v/xlv  (an  es- 
pecially apt  designation  under  the  circumstances  *)  and  to  regard 
them  highly  in  love  Sia  to  epyov  avrcov,  that  is,  because  they  are 
laborers  in  the  Lord,  and  the  command  elp-qvevere  ev  eavroi<i 
(not  fier  avTcov);  and  the  juxtaposition  of  5"'^^  and  5"  (which 
begins  vovderetre  tov<;  araKrovi)  become  extremely  significant. 
Clearly  the  peace  of  the  church  is  disturbed  and  the  blame  is 
not  confined  to  one  side  (^elprjvevere  iv  eaurot?).  Some  of  the 
brethren  had  not  shown  that  respect  to  the  "workers"  which 
was  their  due,  and  the  "workers"  had  not  been  quite  tactful. 
Precisely  what  the  situation  is  we  do  not  know,  but  it  may  not 
be  too  rash  to  conjecture  that  the  idlers  had  asked  the  "workers" 
for  funds  and  had  been  refused,  with  an  admonition,  on  the 
ground  that  the  claimants  were  unwilling  to  work,  thus  violat- 
ing Paul's  oral  command  (i.  e.  in  4"  Ka6di<i  vfilv  Trapr}^'-  eLXa/xev). 
May  we  go  further  and  surmise  that  the  demand  of  the 
idlers  had  been  made  iv  Trvev/iaTi  ?  f  Such  a  request  is  not 
without  analogy,  for  in  Did.  1 1^  we  read :  0?  S'av  eLirr)  iv  Trvev/xarL' 
Ao?  fioL  apyvpia  7)  erepd  rtva  ovk  uKovaeaOe  avrov.  And  did 
this  unethical  interpretation  of  the  utterances  of  the  Spirit  so 
affect  the  "workers"  that  they  became  inclined  to  distrust 
somewhat  the  validity  in  general  of  the  x^piafiara?  Some 
countenance  is  given  to  this  guess  by  5^^'^^  where  Paul  exhorts 
the  brethren  on  the  one  hand  not  to  quench  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit 
and  not  to  despise  the  x^pio-fia  of  irpoc^-qrela,  and  on  the  other 
hand  to  test  the  utterances  of  the  Spirit.  This  exhortation  may 
well  be  ad  hoc,  for  (as  Grotius  remarks  on  4")  mos  est  Paulo 
peculiariter  ea  vitia  tang  ere  quce  quoque  in  loco  vigebant  maximc. 

*The  designation  "those  who  labor  among  you"  is  quite  untechnical; 
the  labor  is  further  defined  also  untechnically  by  irpoiffTaixivovs  and  povOeroOvras, 
namely  by  looking  after  the  needs  of  the  group  and  giving  brotherly  admo- 
nition. Koiridu  is  a  favorite  word  of  Paul  used  figuratively  of  himself  and 
others  (e.  g.,  Gal.  4",  I  Cor.  5'°,  Rom.  16«  '-,  Ph.  2'",  Col.  1=*)  and  also  in  con- 
nection with  ipyd^effOai  (I  Cor.  4'-,  Eph.  4-*).  As  Deissmann,  Licht  vom  Osten, 
1909^-  *,  227  f.,  observes,  the  word  discloses  Paul's  acquaintance  with  the 
laboring  classes. 

t  In  this  connection  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  some  of  the  brethren,  inno- 
cently or  not,  had  interpreted  the  Spirit  as  saying:  The  Day  of  the  Lord  is 
present  (II.  2^  6id  irvevfuiTos).     Were  these  brethren  also  idlers? 


"the. LOAFERS,"    1    THESS.    5**  201 

Clearly  again  in  5"^  it  is  appropriate  to  invoke  in  prayer  the  God 
of  peace.  But  why  in  5"  is  it  necessary  to  adjure  solemnly  that 
this  letter,  our  First  Epistle,  be  read  to  all  the  brethren?  Had 
the  idlers  endeavored  to  take  the  management  of  the  funds  into 
their  own  hands  and  refused  to  listen  to  any  epistolary  injunc- 
tions from  Paul?*  However  we  may  account  in  detail  for  the 
indications  of  I  5^^'^^  it  is  evident  from  this  as  well  as  from  4""^^ 
that  the  original  difficulty  with  the  meddlesome  idlers  had  in- 
<;reased  since  the  departure  of  Paul,  although  affairs  had  not 
reached  the  crucial  stage  presupposed  by  the  Second  Epistle. 

If  this  brief  examination  of  I  4^'^^  512-27  ^^^  been  successful, 
it  has  made  probable  that  ol  araKToc  is  to  be  rendered  not  "  the 
disorderly,"  indicating  the  brethren  of  4"  as  both  unquiet  and 
meddlesome  and  idle,  but  "  the  loafers,"  singling  out  as  important 
the  result  of  unquietness  of  spirit  due  to  the  belief  in  the  near- 
ness of  the  Parousia,  and  the  cause  of  the  meddling,  namely 
idleness,  an  idleness  which  is  not  simply  a  being  without  work 
{ctpyelv)  but  an  idleness  which  neglects  the  divine  ra^i?  of 
labor  (araKTetv).  In  this  case,  5"  with  its  definite  articles  f 
refers  to  the  three  classes  chiefly  in  mind  in  the  last  two  chapters 
of  I,  ot  ara/cTot  J  who  as  the  most  troublesome  are  warned;  oi 
oXi'yo-^vxoi  who,  impatient  of  the  Parousia  but  not  mischievous, 
are  encouraged;  §  and  ol  daOevel'i  who  being  tempted  sorely  to 
impurity  are  to  be  clung  to  and  tenderly  but  firmly  supported. 

While  the  indications  of  the  First  Epistle  make  probable  the 
rendering  "the  loafers"  for  ol  draKToi,  the  full  persuasion 
thereof  is  from  the  Second  Epistle,  especially  3^'".  This  Epistle, 
as  already  noted,  is  devoted  to  two  points  only,  the  Parousia 

*  If  the  meddlesomeness  reached  thus  far,  then  Wetstein's  comment  on 
(piXoTifieTffdai  ijffvxd^eiv  is,  with  modifications,  apt:  eleganter  dictum:  ambite  et 
expetite  non  honores  et  magistratiLS,  quod  plerique  solent,  sed  vitam  privatam  et 
quietam. 

t  naKpoOvfieTre  (v.  '^)  is  to  be  taken  with  opdre  and  Stci/cere  (v.  "*). 

t  The  unique  phrase  6  kSttos  ttjs  dydirri$  (I  1^),  probably  minted  by  Paul, 
thus  gains  in  meaning.  This  phrase  like  ij  inrofiovr]  rrj's  iXirldo^  and  rb  epyov  rijs 
wlffTeus  (cf.  II  1")  is  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  Greek  Bible  nor  in  the 
Apostolic  Fathers. 

§  In  the  light  of  5'*,  2"  irapaKaXovvre^  vfxds  irapap.vdo'ufievoi  Kal  /xaprvpd/jLevoi  ets  rb 
kt\  becomes  definite,  "urging  you  both  by  encouragement  and  by  solemn 
appeal  to  walk,"  etc.  irapafivdeTa-dai  only  here  and  5'*  in  Paul;  the  6X176- 
tf/vxoi  are  in  mind.     The  stronger  /xaprupd/xevoi  would  refer  to  ol  AraKroi. 


202  "the    loafers,"    1    THESS.    5" 

(P-2*^)  and  the  Idlers  (3^"^'').  Our  present  concern  is  with  the 
latter  point.  Paul  had  been  hearing  *  of  some  f  who  had  been 
and  still  were  7repL7raTovvra<;'l  iv  vfilv  araKTca,  that  is,  as  the 
explanatory  clause  without  koX  intimates,  "  not  working  but  busy- 
bodying"  (v.  ^^).  Precisely  in  what  this  •jreptepyd^ea-Oai  con- 
sisted does  not  appear.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  there  is  no 
mention  of  the  Gentiles  in  the  context,  it  is  legitimate  to  infer 
that  the  interference  is  not  with  public  affairs,  but  with  the  affairs 
of  the  church.  This  inference  is  supported  also  by  vy.  ^^'^^, 
where,  after  urging  the  brethren  not  to  falter  in  well  doing, 
Paul  goes  on  to  say:  "If  however  any  one  (xi?,  cf.  Tiva^;  v.  ") 
does  not  obey  {viraKoveiv  as  Ph.  2^")  our  word  (that  is,  the 
gospel  utterance  on  ipyd^eaOat  v.  ^^)  expressed  in  this  Epistle 
(our  II),  mark  him  (whether  by  putting  up  his  name  on  a  board 
or  by  publicly  naming  him  at  a  meeting  is  uncertain);  do  not 
associate  with  him"  (//.^  avvavafiiyvvcrOai,',  cf.  crreWea-OaL  v.  ^). 
This  rather  severe  §  command  is  modified  by  the  statement  of 
its  purpose,  that  the  brother  "may  be  ashamed  of  himself"  and 
presumably  go  back  to  work;  and  by  the  method  of  its  execution: 
"do  not  regard  him  as  if  he  were  an  enemy  but  admonish  him 
(vovdereire  as  I  5")  as  if  he  were  a  brother."  The  meddling 
then  is  with  the  affairs  of  the  organization,  and  the  consequence 
was,  as  the  prayer  to  Christ  the  Lord  of  Peace  (v.  ^^;  cf.  I  5^^) 
suggests,  a  disturbance  within  the  brotherhood.  The  origin 
of  the  trouble  seems  to  have  been  an  unquietness  of  mind  (v.  ^^ 
fiera  'qa-v^^a';)  due  to  the  belief  in  the  nearness  of  the  Parou- 
sia.  From  this  unquietness  flowed  idleness  (ipyd^eadat  v,  ^^),  a 
blameworthy  idleness,  for  it  was  a  direct  violation  of  the  gospel 
command  (v.  ").  And  this  idleness  in  its  turn  brought  on  pov- 
erty, and  poverty  the  demand  for  support  with  its  begging  (v.  ^ 
rbv  kavTMv  dprov)  and  meddling.  || 

*  dKoiJo/jLev  as  I  Cor.  11'*,  not  riKoiffafiev  as  Eph.  1'',  Col.  1*.  We  need  not, 
however,  press  the  present  to  mean  "we  keep  hearing." 

t  Though  he  does  not  say  nms  viiCiv,  they  too  are  brothers  (w.  ^-  **). 

X  The  participle,  not  the  infinitive  (I  Cor.  11'*). 

§  Absolute  excommunication  is  hardly  intended,  for  the  persons  are  not 
enemies  but  brothers  (v.  '^)  and  no  fi7)  (rwea-dUiv  (I  Cor.  5")  is  expressed. 

II  The  command  of  I  4"  rjffvx^i'ei-v  xal  wpdffffeiv  ra.  t8ta  Kal  ipyd^effdai  rats 
Xepfflv  v/xCjv  is  not  repeated.  By  joining  ipyd^ea-dai  first  with  irepiep-yd^eadai 
(v.  ")  and  then  with  /xerd  ■^o'ux^as  and   rbv  eavrQv  dprov  (v.  '-)   Paul  makes 


"the   loafers,"    1   THESS.   5^*  203 

The  indications  of  vv.  ^^-^'^  reveal  a  situation  similar  to  that  in 
I  but  somewhat  more  acute.  We  do  not  know,  of  course,  the 
exact  run  of  events  at  Thessalonica  in  the  interval  between  the 
writing  of  I  and  II,  but  we  may  surmise  that  the  "workers" 
(I  5^^)  had  heeded  Paul's  advice  about  peace  (I  5")  and  about 
spiritual  gifts  (I  51^-22)  and  had,  as  vovderovvre';  (I  5^^)  ad- 
monished, the  araKTov^  (I  5")  to  desist  from  their  demands  for 
support  and  to  return  to  work,  as  Paul  had  commanded  both 
orally  and  by  letter.  The  idlers,  however,  refusing  to  acquiesce 
asserted  again  (v.  ";  cf.  rrda-iv  I  5^')  that  they  would  pay  no  at- 
tention to  Paul's  commands  by  letter.  The  result  was  naturally 
that  the  "workers"  grew  tired  of  doing  the  right  thing  for  the 
idlers  and  the  peace  of  the  church  continued  to  be  troubled. 

To  meet  this  acuter  state  of  affairs,  Paul  devotes  the  last 
chapter  of  the  letter.  The  approach  (vv.  ^"^)  to  the  theme  is 
tactful.  Speaking  first  of  himself  and  the  needs  of  his  work, 
he  urges  the  brethren  to  pray  for  him  that  his  gospel  may  run 
its  race  successfully  and  be  crowned  with  glory  (cf.  Rom.  15^"), 
and  that  he  may  be  rescued  from  those  unrighteous  and  wicked 
opponents,  meaning  doubtless  the  Jews  who  are  still  causing 
trouble  in  Corinth.*  Having  thus  asked  for  sympathy,  he  turns 
sympathetically  to  his  brethren  in  Thessalonica  (v.  ^),  who  also 
are  facing  obstacles,  and  assures  them  that  the  Lord  (Christ 
not  God  as  I  5^*),  the  faithful,  will  establish  them  and  guard 
them  from  the  Evil  One,  the  opponent  of  the  kingdom  as  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  Then  (v.  *)  somewhat  abruptly  he  expresses 
his  confidence  based  upon  the  indwelling  Christ  that  the  Thessa- 
lonians  are  doing  and  will  do  what  he  commands.  Why  this 
just  now?  Without  forcing  TrapayyeWo/jbev  to  mean  "we  are 
on  the  point  of  commanding,"  we  cannot  escape  the  impression 
that  a  serious  command  is  at  hand.  But  why  does  he  say  not 
7re7roidafi€v  i(f)'  vfjid'i  iv  Kvpioy  "  we  have  confidence  in  you  who 
are  in  the  Lord"  (as  Gal.  5^"),  but  TreiroiOa/jLev  iv  Kvpio)  e0'  v/idf 
"we  who  are  in  the  Lord  have  confidence  in  you"?     In  the 

clear  what  we  assumed  in  I  4"''-  that  fii}  ijavxd^eiv  led  to  fiij  4pyd^€<rdai,  and 
this  to  poverty,  begging,  and  meddling,  and  that  nrjSevd^  xP^^a"  fxvre  (I  4'-) 
refers  to  begging. 

*  The  added  ov  yap  wain-wv  ij  irla-ns  indicates  a  mood  similar  to  that  in  I 
215-16.  g^  similar  situation  prompts  the  similar  mood. 


204  "the    loafers,"    1    THESS.    5" 

light  of  the  tactful  Ka0o)<i  koI  v/jba<i  (v,  ^),  it  is  clear  that  the  ma- 
jority of  the  brethren  by  reason  of  their  confidence  in  the  Lord 
would  do  what  Paul  commands;  but  apparently  he  feels  that 
some  have  not  that  confidence  in  the  Lord.  Hence  (v.  ^)  with 
the  minority  in  mind  he  prays  that  Christ  would  direct  their 
purposes  to  the  end  of  possessing  divine  love  without  which 
"the  labor  of  love"  involving  hard  work  would  be  impossible, 
and  of  possessing  the  endurance  of  which  the  Messiah  is  an 
example  *  without  which  example  steadfastness  would  be  im- 
possible. 

With  this  tactful  approach,  the  Apostle  takes  up  in  v.  ^  the 
specific  command  already  in  mind  in  v.  ^  Invoking  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  he  commands  the  brethren  in  a  body  to 
stand  aloof  from  every  brother  aTaKTca  TrepLirahovvTo^ ,  that 
is,  who  is  violating  the  irapdhoai^  (singular  not  as  2^^  plural) 
already  received  by  his  converts.  What  this  TrapaBoaa  is,  this 
fit}  araKTco^  TrepiTrarelv  is  made  clear  by  vv.  '"^  and  v.  ^^  each  in- 
troduced by  yap.  In  v.  ^  the  yap  explains  not  directly  what  the 
irapdhocn<i  is,  but  indirectly  how  it  was  exemplified  in  the  con- 
duct of  Paul:  ovK  yraKTTjaa/xev  iv  vfitv  nor  did  we  get  sup- 
port gratis  from  any  one  of  you.  That  the  7rapd8oai<;  includes 
only  the  ovk  araKrelv  is  evident  from  v.  ®  where  it  defines  cnaKrw'i 
TrepiTrarelv;  and  also  from  v.  ^  where  attention  is  called  to  the 
fact  that  he  worked  (ipja^o/ievoL)  incessantly,  purposing  not  to 
put  a  burden  upon  any  one  of  the  brethren,  that  is,  in  the 
light  of  V.  ^  to  relieve  the  converts  of  the  duty  of  supporting 
him  while  he  preached. |  That  the  Trapd8o(n<i  is  epyd^eaOai  is 
even  clearer  in  v.  "  where  the  yap  (parallel  to  yap  in  v.  ^)  explains 
directly  the  TrapdBo(TL<;  thus :  ec  rt?  ov  0e\et  epyd^eaOat  fjLtjSe  icrOiero). 
The  aTdKT(o<i  TrepLTrarelv  which  is  contrary  to  the  Trapdhoaa 
(v.  ®)  is  p,r)  epyd^eaOai.  This  interpretation  is  strengthened  by 
w.  ""^^  where  yap  (v.  ")  introduces  the  reason  for  repeating 
the    original   command  (v.  ***  =  57  Trapdhoac^   v.  *),  namely  that 

*  Cf.  II  Cor.  P,  Col.  1^*.  The  phrase  ^  viro/xovri  tov  xp'o'toO  is  apparently- 
coined  by  Paul;  cf.  Ignatius  Rom.  10*. 

t  Note  the  characteristically  Pauline  ovx  Sn  ovk  exo/J-ev  i^ovfflav.  The  same 
claim  to  apostolic  authority  and  the  same  waiving  of  it  in  love  are  to  be  found 
in  a  different  connection  in  I  2"'  "although  we  were  ever  able  to  be  in  a 
place  of  importance  as  Christ's  apostles  "  we  waived  this  right  in  love,  choos- 
ing to  appear  among  you  not  as  apostles  but  as  babes. 


"the   loafers,"    1   THESS.   5**  205 

Paul  has  been  hearing  and  still  hears  of  some  who  are  irepi- 
paTovvTe<;  iv  vfilv  aTdKT(o<i,  that  is,  jxrjhev  ipja^ofievov^;  but,  using 
a  common  pun,  TrepLepja^ofie'vois.  Again  TrepiTraTeiv  aTa/crtu? 
like  cnaKTelv  (v.  •*)  is  fir^  ipyd^eaOat,.  Clearly  then  in  vv. "'", 
the  specific  rd^i'i  in  mind,  the  oral  Trapdhoafi  exemplified  in  the 
conduct  of  Paul  is  labor.  Having  thus  assured  the  brethren  as 
a  whole  (vv.  ^'")  that  there  is  nothing  new  in  the  command  to 
work,  he  turns  to  the  fir)8ev  ipya^ofievot  and  commands  such  as 
these  and  exhorts  them  as  well  that  with  tranquillity  of  mind 
they  work  and  earn  their  own  living,  suggesting  that  it  is  only 
by  working  with  a  mind  undisturbed  by  thoughts  about  the 
nearness  of  the  Parousia  that  they  can  support  themselves  as 
Paul  did.  Then  in  vv.  ^^'^^,  he  turns  to  the  brethren  as  a  whole 
with  the  exhortation  not  to  weary  in  their  doing  what  is  right 
to  the  troublers  and  with  directions  how  to  treat  the  recalci- 
trants, ending  with  a  prayer  for  peace. 

If  then  the  rd^i^  in  vv.  ^"^^  is  work,  it  is  natural  to  translate 
aTUKTelv  "  to  be  idle "  and  irepiiraTelv  ara/cTco?  "  to  walk  idly  '* 
and  consequently  ot  dra/cTOL  in  I  5"  "the  idlers,"  as  indeed  I 
had  already  done  in  1904  on  the  basis  of  these  verses  and  P. 
Oxy.  275.*  It  is  to  be  observed  however  that  the  idleness 
here  is  specifically  a  refusal  to  work  (v.  ^^  ov  OeXei;  Bengel 
aptly:  nolle  vitium  est),  a  direct  violation  of  the  irapdSoai'j 
(v.  ®)  and  of  Paul's  own  example  (v.  ^■*),  and  of  the  gospel 
utterance  (v. "  tm  Xoyqy  rnxoiv).  To  express  this  notion  of 
neglect,  Paul  chooses  not  (T'^okd^eiv  (cf.  Exod.  5*-  "  a'xpXd^ere, 
(TxoXaaraL  ia-re),  a  word  he  prefers  to  use  in  the  sense  "  to  have 
leisure  for"  (I  Cor.  7';  cf.  Ps.  45");  not  dpr^elv  (cf.  Sir.  30''* 
e/i/SaXe  avrov  et?  ipyacriav  iva  firj  apjy;  also  dpyd^,  Sir.  37", 
Mt.  12'^  20'-  ^  I  Tim.  5'\  Tit.  1*=^),  a  word  Paul  does  not  use 
but  which,  as  we  saw,  is  in  some  papyri  equivalent  to  araKTelu 
though  the  latter  has  the  nuance  of  neglect;  but  draKrelv  and 
ara/cTo)?  and  dra/cro^,  words  distinctly  implying  an  infringement 
of  the  divine  order  of  labor.  In  English,  however,  this  notion 
of  neglect  is  suggested  best  not  by  "  to  be  idle, "  etc.,  but  by  "  to 
loaf,"  etc.  It  was  thus  of  interest  to  me  to  discover  that  W.  G. 
Rutherford,  in  his  admirable  translation  entitled  St.  Paul's 
Epistles  to  the  Thessaloniaiis  and  to  the  Corinthians  (posthumously 
*  See  Amer.  Journ.  Theol.  VIII,  1904,  614  ff. 


206  "the    loafers,"    1    THESS.    5" 

published  in  1908),  translates  in  two  of  the  four  cases  in  which 
the  words  occur:  "not  to  be  intimate  with  any  of  your  number 
who  is  a  loafer"  (II  3");  "we  were  no  loafers  when  we  lived 
among  you"  (II  3^).  Supported  by  the  internal  evidence  of 
the  two  epistles,  and  by  the  use  of  araKrelv  in  papyri,  and  by 
Rutherford's  translation  in  two  of  the  four  cases,  I  venture  to 
propose  "  the  loafers  "  as  the  rendering  of  rois  aTUKToix;  in  I  5".* 
In  conclusion  it  may  be  added  that  it  is  not  accidental  that 
letters  betraying  the  existence  of  feverish  excitement  about  the 
coming  of  the  Lord  should  also  contain  the  warning  against 
loafing;  not  accidental  that  the  two  main  points  of  II  are  the 
Parousia  and  the  loafers;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  such  expectancy 
is  frequently  coupled  with  indifference  to  the  ordinary  duties  of 
life.  (Cf.  in  certain  respects  even  I  Cor.  7"  ^•.)  It  is  however 
worthy  of  note  that  it  is  in  letters  to  workingmen  that  w^ords  are 
used  in  a  sense  as  yet  found  only  in  the  papyri  reflecting  the  life 
of  the  common  people.  And  it  is  further  significant  that  from 
a  situation  created  by  the  belief  in  the  immediate  coming  of  the 
Lord,  Paul  stamps  once  for  all  as  Christian  the  necessity  and  dig- 
nity of  labor.  For  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  divine  tra- 
dition is  not  a  mere  Jewish  or  Greek  proverb  to  the  effect  that 
if  a  man  does  not  work  he  does  not  get  anything  to  eat,  but 
is  a  lofty  ethical  imperative:  If  a  man  %vill  not  work,  he  shall 
not  eat.f 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 
June  29,  1910. 

*  Sir.  Wm.  Ramsay,  in  an  appreciative  review  of  Milligan's  Thessalonians 
{Expos.  VII,  1909),  remarks  (pp.  2-4)  that  the  context  in  II  3'  «•  places 
beyond  doubt  that  idleness  is  involved  in  draKrelp  and  concludes  correctly: 
"If  that  be  so,  there  can  be  no  justification  for  clinging  to  the  harsher  mean- 
ing "  (that  is,  apparently  "the  disorderly  ")  "in  I  5"."  See  also  the  citation 
from  Dr.  Milligan,  quoted  above  (p.  195),  dra/cr^w  =  "to  be  idle." 

t  It  were  indeed  a  pity  if  we  had  to  assume  that  it  was  not  Paul  but  a 
falsarius  who  invented  this  "golden  rule  of  labor  "  (von  Dobschiitz)  with  its 
fine  ethical  emphasis.  But  the  assumption  is  unnecessary.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  the  argument  of  H.  Holtzmann,  ZNTW,  1901,  97-108  (cf.  Hollmann, 
ibid.  1904,  28-38,  and  especially  the  brilliant  essay  of  Wrede,  Die  Echtheit 
des  zweiten  Thess.  1903)  that  a  falsarius  had  enlarged  I  4"'-  into  II  3*'^ 
tends  to  neglect  the  exegetical  fact  that  were  it  not  for  II  3''-'-  we  should 
be  unable  to  be  sure  of  the  meaning  of  I  4'''^-  or  of  the  translation  of  oi 
AraKTOi  in  I  5'*. 


XVII 

CALVIN'S  THEORY  OF  THE  CHURCH 

By  Arthur  Cushman  McGiffert 

According  to  Catholic  theory  the  Church  of  Christ  is  the  visi- 
ble and  organized  institution  founded  by  the  apostles  and  ruled 
by  their  successors  the  bishops.  This  institution  is  the  alone 
ark  of  salvation  and  the  supreme  authority  upon  earth.  Ac- 
cording to  Luther,  the  Church  of  Christ  is  the  community  of 
all  Christian  believers,  whether  organized  or  unorganized,  and 
its  vocation  is  to  proclaim  the  gospel  of  God's  forgiving  love 
in  Christ,  and  to  bind  men  together  in  mutual  love  and  service 
and  in  common  labor  for  the  good  of  others.  Apart  from  it 
salvation  is  impossible  as  truly  as  on  the  Catholic  theory,  not 
however  because  it  is  the  sole  depositary  and  dispenser  of  saving 
grace  committed  to  its  bishops  by  the  apostles,  but  because 
through  it  alone  the  gospel  of  God's  forgiving  love  in  Christ 
is  made  known. 

In  order  to  understand  Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  and  to 
appreciate  its  relation  to  the  Catholic  theory  on  the  one  side  and 
Luther's  on  the  other  it  is  necessary  to  remind  ourselves  of  his 
fundamental  conception  of  Christianity  and  the  Christian  life. 
All  controlling  in  his  religious  thinking  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
absolute  and  unconditioned  will  of  God.  For  the  manifestation 
of  his  character  as  just  and  merciful  God  decreed  human  sin, 
the  punishment  of  some  sinners,  and  the  pardon  and  sancti- 
fication  of  others.  The  means  by  which  he  accomplishes  his 
purpose  concerning  the  latter  are  of  his  own  appointment  and 
might  have  been  quite  other  than  they  are.  That  men  can  be 
saved  only  by  the  free  grace  of  God  through  faith  in  Christ,  %vho 
has  made  atonement  and  paid  the  penalty  of  human  sin,  is  due 
not  to  the  inherent  necessities  of  the  case  but  to  the  sovereign 

207 


208  Calvin's  theoey  of  the  church 

will  of  God.  Under  these  circumstances  the  test  of  every  sys- 
tem, institution,  doctrine  and  so-called  means  of  grace,  is  not 
its  fitness  for  the  work  in  hand  but  its  conformity  to  the  will  of 
God.  What  he  has  appointed  or  commanded  is  to  be  recog- 
nized as  necessary  and  of  absolute  obligation.  Our  duty  is 
undeviating  conformity  and  unquestioning  obedience.  "  Pure 
and  genuine  religion,"  Calvin  says  almost  at  the  beginning  of 
his  Institutes,  "consists  in  faith  united  with  a  serious  fear  of  God, 
a  fear  which  comprehends  willing  reverence  and  leads  to  such 
legitimate  worship  as  is  prescribed  by  the  law"  (book  I,  chap,  2); 
and  in  the  fourth  book,  "Everything  pertaining  to  the  perfect 
rule  of  right  living  the  Lord  has  comprehended  in  his  law  in 
such  a  way  that  there  remains  nothing  for  men  to  add  to  that 
summary.  And  he  has  done  this  first,  that  since  all  rectitude  of 
life  consists  in  the  conformity  of  all  our  actions  to  his  will  as 
their  standard,  we  might  consider  him  as  the  sole  master  and 
director  of  life;  and  secondly  to  show  that  he  requires  of  us  noth- 
ing more  than  obedience."     (Chap,  x,  §  7.) 

God's  will  which  is  the  rule  of  life  is  unknown  except  he  re- 
veal it,  and  this  he  does  in  the  Bible,  the  authoritative  code  of 
faith  and  conduct.  The  Christian  life  consists  not  in  the  free 
and  spontaneous  expression  of  the  character  of  a  child  of  God, 
but  in  faithful  obedience  to  the  divine  commands  as  laid  down 
in  the  Scriptures. 

Calvin  claimed  to  believe  in  Christian  liberty  and  devoted  a 
brief  chapter  to  the  subject  in  the  third  book  of  his  Institutes, 
but  though  in  form  his  doctrine  was  identical  with  Luther's 
at  least  in  part — the  Christian  by  his  faith  being  set  free  from  de- 
pendence upon  works  for  justification — in  reality  liberty  had  very 
little  place  in  his  interpretation  of  the  Christian  life.  He  was 
chiefly  interested  not  to  promote  liberty,  except  from  subjection 
to  ecclesiastical  rites  and  ceremonies,  but  to  guard  against  the 
misuse  of  it  by  unworthy  and  slothful  Christians,  and  Luther's 
glowing  tract  on  the  Freedom  of  the  Christian  Man  it  would  have 
been  quite  impossible  for  him  to  write.  He  did  not  trust  the 
saved  man  as  the  great  German  reformer  did.  The  Christian, 
he  felt,  needs,  as  well  as  others,  the  pressure  of  an  external  law, 
and  it  must  be  obeyed  by  him  as  by  them,  not  because  it  is  good 
or  expresses  his  character  as  a  child  of  God  but  because  it  is 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  209 

God's  law.  Calvin  separated  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
and  opposed  it  with  all  his  might,  but  he  was  a  thorough-going 
believer  in  authority  in  the  religious  sphere  as  everywhere  else, 
and  his  Christianity  was  in  this  respect  as  catholic  as  any 
Romanist's. 

Moreover,  in  still  another  fundamental  matter  he  was  a  genu- 
ine Catholic.  He  believed  in  the  corruption  of  human  nature 
and  the  need  of  its  transformation  by  divine  power  if  it  were  to 
escape  eternal  destruction.  Regeneration  was  therefore  neces- 
sary, and  although  God  might  have  used  other  means  to  effect 
it,  he  actually  chose  to  bring  it  about  ordinarily  through  bap- 
tism, the  sacrament  of  regeneration,  and  to  nourish  the  regener- 
ated nature  by  the  Eucharist,  the  sacrament  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ.  Calvin,  to  be  sure,  rejected  transubstantia- 
tion,  and  also  the  realistic  doctrine  of  Luther,  and  talked  about 
a  spiritual  instead  of  material  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Lord's 
supper,  but  he  was  a  sacramentalist  nevertheless,  much  more  of 
a  one  than  Luther,  for  he  always  thought  of  baptism  and  the 
Lord's  supper  not  merely  as  signs  of  the  forgiving  love  of  God 
in  Christ,  the  word  made  visible,  but  as  having  to  do  primarily 
with  the  birth  and  sustenance  of  a  new  nature — an  essentially 
Catholic  conception.  Indeed,  the  whole  notion  of  regeneration 
is  Catholic,  involving  a  change  of  nature  not  merely  of  disposi- 
tion and  will.  At  this  point  Luther,  too,  often  felt  the  influence 
of  Catholic  tradition,  but  what  with  him  was  exceptional  only 
with  Calvin  was  constant  and  controlling. 

In  the  light  of  what  has  been  said  of  Calvin's  general  posi- 
tion let  us  consider  his  theory  of  the  church.  In  the  fourth 
book  of  the  last  edition  of  his  Institutes  he  sets  forth  his  doc- 
trine of  the  church  at  great  length.  It  is  the  fullest  and  final 
statement  of  the  matter  from  his  pen.  In  the  Genevan  Cate- 
chism he  had  defined  the  church  as  "The  body  and  society  of 
believers  whom  God  hath  predestined  to  eternal  life."  By  the 
church  thus  defined  he  meant,  not  the  visible  church,  but  "the 
assemblage  of  those  whom  God  has  adopted  by  his  secret  elec- 
tion, which  is  neither  at  all  times  visible  to  the  eye  nor  discerni- 
ble by  signs."  Also  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Institutes,  with 
the  same  spiritual  body  in  mind  he  said,  "  We  believe  in  the  Holy 
Catholic   Church,    that   is   the   universal   number   of   the   elect 


210  Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

whether  angels  or  men,  whether  dead  or  living,  and  however 
widely  dispersed  among  the  nations.  We  believe  that  there  is 
one  church  and  society  and  people  of  God  whose  leader  and  prince 
is  Christ  our  Lord,  the  head  of  the  one  body.  In  him,  by  the 
divine  goodness,  they  are  elect  before  the  foundation  of  the  world 
that  they  may  all  be  gathered  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  This 
society  moreover  is  Catholic,  that  is  universal,  because  there 
cannot  be  two  or  three  of  them;  but  the  elect  of  God  are  all  so 
united  and  bound  together  that  as  they  depend  on  one  head  in 
the  same  way  they  coalesce  in  one  body,  adhering  to  one  another 
as  members  of  the  same  body  do.  They  are  truly  one,  being 
called  in  one  faith,  hope  and  love  by  the  same  Spirit  of  God 
while  they  live,  and  being  made  heirs  of  the  same  inheritance  of 
eternal  life.  The  church  is  also  holy,  because  as  many  as  are 
chosen  by  the  eternal  providence  of  God,  that  they  may  be  re- 
ceived as  members  of  the  church,  are  all  sanctified  by  the  Lord. 
.  .  .  Since,  moreover,  the  church  is  the  people  of  God's  elect, 
it  is  not  possible  that  those  who  are  its  true  members  should  ever 
perish.  .  .  .  This  is  the  Catholic  Church,  the  mystical  body  of 
Christ"  (chap.  2). 

Here  the  visible  church,  made  up  of  good  and  bad,  saved  and 
unsaved,  is  not  dwelt  upon,  but  in  the  last  two  editions  of  the 
Institutes  it  is  made  the  principal  subject  of  discussion,  a  clear 
indication  of  Calvin's  increased  ecclesiastical  interest.  To  be 
sure,  the  same  theory  of  the  invisible  church  still  appears.  Al- 
most at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  book  of  the  edition  of  1559 
it  is  said,  "  Wlien  in  the  creed  we  profess  to  believe  in  the  church 
reference  is  made  not  only  to  the  visible  church  of  which  we  are 
now  speaking,  but  also  to  all  the  elect  of  God,  including  in  the 
number  even  those  who  have  departed  this  life.  .  .  .  But  be- 
cause a  small  and  despised  number  is  concealed  among  an  im- 
mense crowd  and  a  few  grains  of  wheat  are  buried  in  a  heap  of 
chaff  to  God  alone  must  be  left  the  knowledge  of  his  church  of 
which  his  secret  election  forms  the  foundation"  (chap.  1,  §  2). 
He  was  thus  both  earlier  and  later  in  agreement  with  Wyclif 
and  Huss  in  his  interpretation  of  the  invisible  church  as  the  to- 
tality of  the  elect.  Indeed,  in  view  of  the  controlling  place  which 
the  doctrine  of  predestination  had  in  his  system  it  would  have 
been  strange  had  he  not  agreed  with  them  at  this  point.     But 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  211 

he  departed  from  them,  particularly  in  later  years,  and  followed 
Luther  in  his  recognition  of  a  true  visible  church.  Only  such 
recognition  on  his  part,  as  on  Luther's,  made  the  establishment 
of  a  new  church  possible,  for  with  the  theory  of  Wyclif  and  Huss 
no  church  in  a  real  sense  as  a  community  and  association  of 
men  here  on  earth  could  have  any  existence. 

It  is  common  to  speak  of  the  reformation  distinction  between 
the  visible  and  invisible  church,  but  the  distinction  was  not 
Luther's.  To  him,  at  any  rate  after  the  first  few  years,  there  was 
only  one  true  church,  the  assembly  of  all  Christian  believers  on 
earth.  It  is  at  once  visible,  because  it  manifests  itself  in  word  and 
sacrament,  and  invisible  because  nobody  but  God  knows  just 
who  and  how  many  are  its  members.  There  are  therefore 
not  two  entities,  the  invisible  company  of  the  elect  and  the  visi- 
ble ecclesiastical  organization,  there  is  but  one,  the  company  of 
true  Christian  believers.  Calvin  on  the  other  hand  preserved  the 
theory  of  an  invisible  church,  composed  of  the  elect  both  angels 
and  men,  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  which  Luther  had  accepted 
for  a  time  but  early  abandoned,  and  set  beside  it  the  notion  of 
a  visible  church,  or  external  ecclesiastical  institution,  not  iden- 
tical with  it  but  equally  a  true  church.  "From  what  has  been 
said  I  conceive  it  must  now  be  evident  what  judgment  we  ought 
to  form  respecting  the  visible  church  which  falls  under  our  ob- 
servation. For  we  have  remarked  that  the  Scriptures  speak  of 
the  church  in  a  twofold  sense.  Sometimes  in  mentioning  the 
church  they  mean  that  which  is  really  such  in  the  sight  of  God, 
into  which  none  are  received  but  those  who  by  the  gift  of  adop- 
tion are  sons  of  God,  and  by  sanctification  of  the  Spirit  true  mem- 
bers of  Christ.  In  this  sense  it  comprehends  not  only  the  saints 
on  earth  but  all  the  elect  who  have  lived  since  the  beginning  of 
the  world.  But  often  the  word  church  designates  the  whole 
multitude  of  men  scattered  throughout  the  world,  who  profess 
to  worship  one  God  and  Christ,  are  initiated  by  baptism  into 
faith  in  him,  testify  to  their  unity  by  partaking  of  the  Lord's 
supper,  agree  together  in  the  word  of  the  Lord,  and  preserve  the 
ministry  which  Christ  has  instituted  to  preach  it.  In  this  church 
there  are  many  hypocrites  who  have  nothing  of  Christ  but  the 
name  and  appearance;  many  ambitious,  avaricious,  envious, 
evil-speaking  men,  and  some  of  impurer  lives,  who  are  tolerated 


212  Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

for  a  time  either  because  they  cannot  be  easily  convicted  or  be- 
cause due  strictness  of  discipline  is  not  always  maintained. 
Hence  as  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  believe  the  invisible  church 
which  is  manifest  to  the  eyes  of  God  alone,  that  which  is  called 
church  in  the  eyes  of  men  we  are  commanded  to  honor  and  to 
maintain  communion  with  it"  (book  4,  chap.  1,  §  7). 

Two  diverse  interests,  that  of  the  theologian  and  that  of  the 
practical  ecclesiastic,  were  here  operative,  and  the  result  was 
a  confusion  of  thought,  which  was  perpetuated  in  reformed 
Protestantism,  and  has  worked  no  little  mischief. 

In  the  later  editions  of  the  Institutes  it  was  to  the  visible  church, 
as  already  said,  that  Calvin  devoted  his  attention,  and  in  the 
standard  edition  of  1559  the  discussion  fills  more  than  half  the 
fourth  book.  The  visible  church  he  defines  as  follows:  "The 
universal  church  is  a  multitude  collected  from  all  nations,  who 
though  dispersed  in  countries  widely  distant  from  each  other, 
nevertheless  consent  to  the  same  truth  of  divine  doctrine  and  are 
united  by  the  bond  of  the  same  religion.  In  it  particular  churches, 
distributed  according  to  human  necessity  in  various  towns  and 
villages,  are  so  comprehended  that  to  each  belongs  of  right  the 
name  and  authority  of  a  church"  (book  4,  chap.  1,  §  9.) 

The  marks  of  the  visible  church  are  the  word  and  the  sacra- 
ments. "  Wherever  we  find  the  word  of  God  sincerely  preached 
and  heard,  and  the  sacraments  administered  according  to  the 
institution  of  Christ,  there  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  is  a  church  of 
God"  (ibid).  "We  see  how  great  caution  should  be  observed 
on  both  sides.  For  to  prevent  imposture  from  deceiving  us 
under  the  name  of  the  church  every  congregation  receiving  this 
name  should  be  brought  to  that  proof  as  to  a  touchstone.  If 
it  have  in  word  and  sacraments  the  order  prescribed  by  the  Lord 
it  will  not  deceive  us;  we  may  securely  render  it  the  honor  due 
to  all  churches.  On  the  contrary  if  it  exhibit  itself  without 
word  and  sacraments  we  must  be  no  less  careful  to  avoid  the 
imposture  than  we  were  in  the  other  case  to  shun  pride  and  pre- 
sumption" (ibid.  §  11). 

Only  within  this  true  visible  church  which  possesses  the  word 
and  the  sacraments  can  salvation  be  had.  At  the  opening  of 
his  discussion  Calvin  says,  "I  will  begin  with  the  church  into 
whose  bosom  it  is  God's  will  that  his  children  should  be  col- 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church      213 

iected,  that  by  her  aid  and  ministry  they  may  be  nourished 
so  long  as  they  are  babes  and  children,  and  may  also  be 
guided  by  her  maternal  care  until  they  grow  up  to  manhood  and 
finally  attain  to  the  perfection  of  faith.  What  God  has  joined 
together  it  is  not  lawful  to  put  asunder,  that  to  whom  he  is  a 
father  the  church  may  also  be  a  mother"  (ibid.  §  1.)  "But  as 
our  present  design,"  he  says  a  little  later,  "  is  to  treat  of  the  visible 
church,  we  may  learn  even  from  the  title  of  mother  how  useful 
and  even  necessary  it  is  for  us  to  know  her;  since  there  is  no  other 
way  of  entrance  into  life  unless  we  are  conceived  by  her,  born  of 
her,  nourished  at  her  breasts,  and  continually  preserved  under 
her  care  and  government,  until  we  are  divested  of  this  mortal 
flesh  and  become  like  the  angels.  For  our  infirmity  will  not  ad- 
mit of  our  dismission  from  her  school  until  we  have  been  her  dis- 
ciples all  our  life.  It  is  also  to  be  remarked  that  out  of  her  bosom 
there  can  be  no  hope  of  remission  of  sins  and  no  salvation"  (§  4). 
This  explicit  assertion  of  the  impossibility  of  salvation  outside 
the  visible  church  is  frequently  repeated  by  Calvin.  Indeed 
one  of  the  interests  chiefly  controlling  him  throughout  the  entire 
iliscussion  was  to  oppose  those  who  decried  the  visible  church 
and  separated  from  it,  claiming  that  they  could  be  saved  without 
its  pale.  To  withdraw  from  the  church,  he  says,  is  to  re- 
nounce God  and  Christ.  "  So  highly  does  God  esteem  the  com- 
munion of  the  church  that  he  considers  every  one  a  traitor  and 
an  apostate  from  religion  w'ho  contumaciously  withdraws  from 
any  Christian  society  which  preserves  the  true  ministry  of  the 
word  and  the  sacraments.  .  .  .  Hence  it  follows  that  to  depart 
from  the  church  is  to  deny  God  and  Christ,  and  such  a  criminal 
dissension  is  so  much  the  more  to  be  avoided,  because  while  we 
endeavor  so  far  as  we  can  to  destroy  the  truth  of  God  we  de- 
serve to  be  consumed  by  the  power  of  his  wrath"  (§  10).  A 
church  may  be  at  fault  in  many  respects  but  if  it  have  the  word 
and  the  sacraments  it  is  a  true  church  and  is  not  to  be  forsaken 
under  any  circumstances.  Nothing  could  be  more  emphatic 
than  Calvin's  insistence  upon  this  point. 

How  then  did  he  justify  his  own  and  his  fellow-Protestants' 
w^ithdrawal  from  the  Church  of  Rome  ?  The  answer  reveals  an 
important  difference  between  his  and  Luther's  ideas  of  the  word 
of  God.     To  him,  as  to  Luther,  the  word  was  a  necessary  sign 


214      Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

of  the  true  church,  but  while  to  the  older  reformer  it  meant  the 
gospel  of  the  forgiving  love  of  God  in  Christ,  to  Calvin,  as  to 
Melanchthon,  it  meant  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  or  rather  the  Bible 
properly  interpreted,  in  other  words,  sound  doctrine.  ^Yhere 
the  sound  doctrine  of  religion,  which  is  set  forth  in  the  Bible,  is 
faithfully  taught,  there  is  the  true  church;  where  the  teaching 
of  error  takes  its  place,  there  the  true  church  cannot  be.  Error 
in  minor  matters  may  prevail  even  in  the  true  church,  but  error 
touching  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  religion  destroys  it. 
"The  errors,"  he  says,  "which  may  thus  be  forgiven  are  those 
by  which  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  religion  is  not  injured,  and 
by  which  those  articles  of  religion  wherein  all  believers  ought 
to  agree  are  not  suppressed"  (chap.  2,  §  1). 

That  in  this  sound  doctrine  of  religion  he  included  much  more 
than  the  mere  gospel  of  God's  forgiving  love  in  Christ  is  abun- 
dandy  clear  from  such  a  statement  as  the  following: — "Some  of 
the  articles  of  true  doctrine  are  so  necessary  to  be  known  that 
they  ought  to  be  received  by  all  as  fixed  and  indubitable,  as  the 
peculiar  maxims  of  religion;  such  as  that  there  is  one  God,  that 
Christ  is  God  and  the  son  of  God,  that  our  salvation  consists 
in  the  mercy  of  God  and  the  like"  (chap.  1,  §  12).  It  is  clear 
also  from  the  entire  structure  of  his  Institutes  and  from  the  atti- 
tude he  always  took  toward  those  who  differed  with  him  at  all 
widely  in  theological  matters. 

It  was  on  the  basis  of  this  interpretation  of  the  word  as  sound 
doctrine  that  Calvin  justified  secession  from  the  Roman  com- 
munion. "As  soon  as  falsehood  has  made  a  breach  in  the  cita- 
del of  religion,  as  soon  as  the  sum  of  necessary  doctrine  is  sub- 
verted, and  the  use  of  the  sacraments  fails,  annihilation  surely 
ensues,  as  a  man's  life  comes  to  an  end  when  his  throat  is  cut 
or  his  heart  mortally  wounded.  And  this  is  clearly  evident  from 
the  words  of  Paul  when  he  teaches  that  the  church  is  founded 
upon  the  doctrine  of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Christ  himself 
being  the  chief  corner-stone.  If  the  foundation  of  the  church 
be  the  doctrine  of  the  prophets  and  apostles  which  enjoins  be- 
lievers to  place  their  salvation  in  Christ  alone,  how  can  the  edi- 
fice stand  any  longer  when  that  doctrine  is  taken  away?  The 
church,  therefore,  must  of  necessity  fall  where  that  system  of  re- 
ligion is  destroyed  which  alone  is  able  to  sustain  it"  (chap.  2,  §  1). 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  215 

Corruption  and  immorality  in  a  church,  whether  in  its  mem- 
bers or  its  officers,  is  no  excuse  for  separating  from  it.  So  long 
as  it  has  the  word  and  the  sacraments  it  remains  a  true  church 
however  full  of  wickedness,  and  to  withdraw  from  it  is  to  for- 
feit the  possibility  of  salvation.  "Let  these  two  points  then 
remain  fixed;  first  that  he  who  voluntarily  deserts  the  external 
communion  of  the  church,  where  the  w^ord  of  God  is  preached 
and  the  sacraments  are  administered,  is  without  excuse;  secondly 
that  the  faults  either  of  two  persons  or  of  many  form  no  obstacle 
to  a  due  profession  of  our  faith  in  the  ceremonies  instituted  by 
God;  for  the  pious  conscience  is  not  wounded  by  the  unworthi- 
ness  of  any  other  individual  whether  he  be  a  pastor  or  a  private 
person,  nor  are  the  mysteries  less  pure  and  salutary  to  a  holy 
and  upright  man  because  they  are  received  at  the  same  time 
by  the  impure"  (chap.  1,  §  19).  "We  have  already  stated  the 
importance  which  we  ought  to  attach  to  the  ministry  of  the  word 
and  sacraments,  and  the  extent  to  which  our  reverence  for  it 
should  be  carried,  that  it  may  be  accounted  a  perpetual  mark  of 
the  church.  That  is  to  say  that  wherever  it  exists  entire  and 
uncorrupted  no  vices  and  faults  of  conduct  form  a  sufficient 
reason  for  refusing  the  name  of  a  church"  (chap.  2,  §  1). 

The  church  is  not  made  by  persons,  either  lay  or  clerical,  and 
its  reality  is  not  affected  by  their  character,  but  solely  by  the  word 
and  sacraments.  Even  love  itself  is  worthless  without  sound 
doctrine  (chap.  2,  §§  3,  5). 

It  is  often  said  that  the  Protestant  reformation  was  due  to 
the  low  moral  state  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  represented  pri- 
marily an  effort  to  improve  the  moral  condition  of  Christendom. 
Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth,  as  appears  clearly 
enough  from  many  facts,  among  them  this  position  of  Calvin's 
touching  withdrawal  from  the  Roman  Church.  He  was  ethi- 
cally the  most  rigorous  of  all  the  Reformers  and  spent  much  of 
his  time  and  strength  in  laboring  for  the  moral  purification  of 
Geneva  and  of  the  western  Protestant  world,  but  he  declared 
emphatically  and  repeatedly  that  no  one  had  the  right  to  with- 
draw from  an  existing  church  on  moral  grounds.  Only  because 
the  Roman  Church  by  its  corruption  of  the  word  and  the  sacra- 
ments had  ceased  to  be  a  true  church  was  the  Protestant  secession 
justified.     Its  real  basis  was  religious  not  ethical. 


216  Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

The  combination  of  his  idea  of  the  necessity  of  belonging  to 
the  visible  church  with  his  disparate  notion  of  the  church  as  the 
totality  of  the  elect  Calvin  made,  in  the  only  way  indeed  in  which 
it  could  be  made,  by  asserting  that  it  was  God's  will  that  the  elect 
shall  be  in  the  church  and  find  salvation  only  there.  "God 
might,"  as  he  says,  "  have  made  his  people  perfect  in  a  moment, 
but  it  was  not  his  will  that  they  should  grow  to  mature  age 
except  under  the  education  of  the  church"  (chap.  1,  §  5). 
And  a  little  later,  "Though  the  power  of  God  is  not  confined  to 
external  means  yet  he  has  confined  us  to  the  ordinary  manner  of 
teaching."  Of  exceptions  to  this  rule  in  the  case  of  infants, 
idiots  and  the  mentally  incompetent  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak 
here.  Calvin  was  no  more  liberal  at  this  point  than  the  Ro- 
manists. 

Thus  the  visible  church  as  he  conceived  it  rests  upon  the  will 
of  God  and  is  to  be  recognized  as  a  part  of  his  ordinance.  Its 
constitutive  element  is  God's  decree  as  truly  as  that  of  the  in- 
visible church,  and  we  are  saved  only  within  it  simply  because 
God  has  willed  that  we  shall  be  so  saved.  The  vital  connection 
between  the  gospel  of  the  forgiving  love  of  God  and  the  salva- 
tion of  the  sinner,  which  made  the  visible  church  essential  to 
Luther,  was  largely  lost  sight  of  by  Calvin,  and  thus  though  he 
emphasized  the  visible  church  as  strongly  as  Luther  his  interest 
in  it  was  very  different.  In  accordance  with  this  difference 
of  interest  it  was  conceived  by  him  in  a  much  more  external  and 
formal  way  than  by  Luther.  By  the  latter  it  was  never  sharply 
defined  and  its  boundaries  clearly  drawn.  Wherever  the  word 
and  the  sacraments  might  be  there  was  the  church.  Calvin, 
too,  made  the  word  and  the  sacraments  marks  of  the  church, 
as  has  been  seen,  but  he  went  beyond  Luther  in  thinking  of 
the  church  as  an  organized  institution  with  definite  laws  and 
a  fixed  order  of  government.  The  ministry  also  he  made  much 
more  of.  Whereas,  according  to  Luther,  any  Christian  had  the 
right  to  declare  a  repentant  and  believing  brother's  sins  for- 
given, and  to  comfort  him  with  the  assurance  of  the  divine 
pardon,  Calvin,  with  his  greater  zeal  for  order  and  his  greater 
respect  for  authority,  confined  this  office  to  the  clergy.  "  In  the 
communion  of  saints,  therefore,  sins  are  continually  remitted  to 
us  by  the  ministry  of  the  church,  when  the  presbyters  or  bishops, 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  217 

to  whom  this  office  is  committed,  confirm  pious  consciences  by 
the  promises  of  the  gospel  in  the  hope  of  pardon  and  remis- 
sion. .  .  .  Here  are  three  things,  therefore,  worthy  of  our  ob- 
servation. First,  that  whatever  hoHness  may  distmguish  the 
children  of  God,  yet  such  is  their  condition  as  long  as  they  in- 
habit a  mortal  body  that  they  cannot  stand  before  God  without 
remission  of  sins.  Secondly,  that  this  benefit  belongs  to  the 
church,  so  that  we  cannot  enjoy  it  unless  we  continue  in  its  com- 
munion. Thirdly,  that  it  is  dispensed  to  us  through  the  min- 
isters and  pastors  of  the  church,  either  by  the  preaching  of  the 
gospel  or  by  the  administration  of  the  sacraments,  and  that  this 
is  the  principal  exercise  of  the  power  of  the  keys  which  the  Lord 
has  conferred  on  the  society  of  believers.  Let  every  one  of  us 
therefore  consider  it  his  duty  not  to  seek  remission  of  sins  any- 
where but  where  the  Lord  has  placed  it"  (chap.  1,  §  22). 

It  was  not  because  of  any  necessity  in  the  case  that  ministers 
were  made  the  sole  agents  of  forgiveness  and  hence  of  salvation, 
but  only  because  of  the  will  of  God  who  had  seen  fit  so  to  order 
the  matter  as  a  "yoke  of  modesty"  to  believers.  Thus  though 
not  controlled  by  the  sacerdotal  interest,  as  the  Catholics  were, 
Calvin  lodged  in  the  ministry  an  authority  scarcely  less  than 
that  possessed  by  the  clergy  under  the  old  system.  Moreover 
he  put  the  ordination  of  ministers  into  the  hands  of  those  al- 
ready ordained  and  gave  the  latter  the  deciding  voice  in  their 
appointment  to  office. 

To  the  authority  and  functions  of  the  ministry  he  gave  a  great 
deal  of  attention,  discussing  the  matter  at  length  in  the  third  and 
following  chapters  of  the  fourth  book  of  his  Institutes.  Thus, 
for  instance,  after  quoting  Ephesians  4,  he  says — "  In  these  words 
Paul  shows  that  the  ministry  of  men  which  God  employs  in 
governing  the  church  is  the  principal  bond  holding  believers  in 
one  body.  He  also  indicates  that  the  church  cannot  be  preserved 
unimpaired  unless  it  be  supported  by  those  means  which  the 
Lord  has  been  pleased  to  appoint  for  its  preservation.  ...  By 
means  of  his  ministers,  to  whom  he  has  committed  this  office  and 
on  whom  he  has  bestowed  grace  to  discharge  it,  he  distributes 
and  dispenses  his  gifts  to  the  church.  .  .  .  For  neither  the  light 
and  heat  of  the  sun  nor  meat  and  drink  are  so  necessary  to  the 
nourishment  and  sustenance  of  the  present  life  as  the  apostolic 


218  Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

and  pastoral  oflBce  to  the  preservation  of  the  church  in  the  world  " 
(chap.  3,  §  2). 

It  was  no  accident  that  Calvin  laid  so  much  greater  emphasis 
than  Luther  upon  ecclesiastical  polity,  and  did  so  much  more  for 
the  external  framework  of  the  church.  His  notion  of  the  church 
as  an  institution  whose  significance  lay  ultimately  only  in  the 
ordaining  will  of  God  made  it  necessary  to  bring  it  in  all  respects 
completely  into  accord  with  the  indications  of  the  word.  There 
was  no  underlying  principle,  such  as  Luther  recognized,  in  the 
nature  and  purpose  of  the  church  itself,  which  could  be  trusted 
to  work  out  its  own  proper  forms  in  accordance  with  the  varying 
circumstances  of  time  and  place.  Luther  was  willing  to  let 
the  forms  take  care  of  themselves,  but  as  Calvin  thought  of  the 
Christian  life  simply  as  obedience  to  the  divine  will,  it  was  es- 
sential that  that  will  should  be  known  and  followed  in  all  re- 
spects. The  Scriptures  therefore  must  be  carefully  studied  and 
all  the  activities  of  the  church  as  well  as  all  the  conduct  of 
Christians  must  be  modelled  thereon.  It  is  true  that  Calvin 
did  not  go  as  far  as  many  of  his  followers.  He  left  a  consider- 
able margin  of  liberty  for  individual  and  church  in  matters  not 
pertaining  to  salvation  (cf.  chap.  10,  §  30).  But  in  spite  of 
his  insistence  upon  liberty  in  what  he  called  non-essentials,  his 
underlying  principle  was  genuinely  legal,  and  the  rigidity  of 
the  puritanism  of  a  later  day  was  only  the  logical  outcome  of  it. 
The  life  and  polity  and  worship  of  the  Calvinistic  churches, 
whether  they  were  more  or  less  extreme  in  their  application  of 
the  principle,  always  bore  a  very  different  character  from  those 
of  the  Lutheran  churches.  Of  the  freedom  of  the  spirit  there  was 
little;  the  control  of  the  letter  was  minute  and  far  reaching. 

Another  point  of  difference  between  Luther  and  Calvin  was 
in  their  respective  ideas  of  the  purpose  of  the  church.  Accord- 
ing to  the  former  its  primary  purpose  is  to  proclaim  the  gospel 
of  God's  forgiving  love  in  Christ;  according  to  the  latter  to 
train  the  elect  in  holiness.  The  church  has  not  yet  reached 
the  mark  of  holiness  but  it  is  daily  improving  and  advancing 
toward  perfection  as  God  is  continually  sanctifying  his  elect 
who  are  within  its  fold  (chap.  1,  §  17).  The  idea  that  there 
rests  upon  the  church  a  responsibility  for  the  improvement  of 
the  world,  or  the  betterment  of  society,  or  the  promotion  of  the 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  219 

kingdom  of  God  in  the  earth,  was  altogether  foreign  to  Calvin's 
thought.  The  end  of  the  church,  as  he  viewed  it,  was  the  ad- 
vantage of  its  own  members.  They  alone,  or  rather  only  the 
elect  among  them,  enjoyed  its  benefits,  and  for  their  good  alone 
it  was  established.  Forgiveness  of  sins  was  to  be  had  within 
the  church  and  only  there,  and  the  same  was  true  of  regenera- 
tion and  the  spiritual  nourishment  of  the  new  nature  provided 
in  the  eucharist.  The  church  therefore,  according  to  Calvin, 
was  a  means  of  grace,  not  merely  a  communion  of  saints,  but  a 
means  of  grace  solely  to  those  within  its  pale  and  not  to  all  of 
them,  for  the  elect  alone  were  truly  blessed  by  its  ministrations 
(chap.  1,  §  5  seq.). 

The  church  was  a  body  set  apart  from  the  world,  "the  pe- 
culiar possession  and  portion  of  God"  (chap.  1,  §  3),  and  it 
was  better  to  hold  aloof  and  keep  itself  pure  than  to  endanger 
its  character  by  throwing  itself  into  the  world's  work.  The 
supreme  duty  of  Christians  was  not  to  serve  their  fellows  and 
establish  the  reign  of  the  spirit  of  love  in  all  the  institutions  and 
relationships  of  this  earth,  as  Luther  believed,  but  to  walk  humbly 
with  God,  to  obey  him  in  all  things,  and  to  keep  themselves  un- 
spotted from  the  world. 

Calvin  did  not  advocate  as  extreme  an  asceticism  as  the 
Catholics  believed  in,  but  he  stood  for  an  otherworldliness 
in  principle  the  same  in  spite  of  all  differences  in  detail.  "It 
should  be  the  aim  of  believers,"  as  he  says,  "in  judging  of  this 
mortal  life  to  understand  it  to  be  of  itself  nothing  but  misery, 
that  more  easily  and  freely  they  may  wholly  apply  themselves 
to  meditation  on  the  future  and  eternal  life"  (book  3,  chap.  9,  §  4). 

The  attitude  of  Calvin  in  this  respect  became  characteristic 
of  the  Calvinistic  churches  in  general.  The  notion  of  the  church 
as  a  community  of  holy  people,  pure  both  in  doctrine  and  in 
conduct,  because  governed  wholly  by  the  will  of  God,  increas- 
ingly overshadowed  the  idea  of  it  as  an  agency  for  the  procla- 
mation of  the  gospel  of  God's  forgiving  love,  and  thus  Luther's 
controlling  idea  was  more  and  more  lost  sight  of. 

It  was  in  accordance  with  Calvin's  interest  at  this  point  that 
he  laid  much  greater  stress  than  Luther  upon  ecclesiastical 
discipline.  The  older  Reformer  realized  perfectly  that  Chris- 
tians were  not  all  they  should  be,  but  his  confidence  in  the  power 


220      Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

of  the  gospel  and  in  the  transforming  influence  of  faith  was  so- 
great,  and  his  devotion  to  the  principle  of  Christian  liberty  so 
controlling,  that  the  development  of  a  system  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline  was  far  from  his  thought.  To  Calvin  on  the  other 
hand,  with  his  notion  of  the  Christian  life  as  obedience  to  the  law 
of  God,  with  his  deep-seated  distrust  of  man,  and  with  his  theory 
of  the  church  as  a  body  set  apart  from  the  world  and  composed 
of  those  predestined  to  holiness,  it  is  not  surprising  that  ecclesi- 
astical discipline  was  a  matter  of  the  greatest  concern,  all  the 
more  so  because,  belonging  as  he  did  to  the  second  generation 
of  Reformers,  he  saw  clearly  enough  that  the  Reformation  had 
not  borne  fruit  in  the  holy  communities  which  he  thought  true 
churches  of  Christ  should  be.  He  therefore  instituted  in  Geneva 
a  very  rigorous  system  of  moral  discipline,  and  in  his  discussion 
of  the  church  in  the  fourth  book  of  his  Institutes  he  devoted  a 
couple  of  long  chapters  to  the  subject,  maintaining  that  the  exer- 
cise of  strict  discipline  is  one  of  the  necessary  marks  of  the  true 
church.  "As  the  saving  doctrine  of  Christ  is  the  soul  of  the 
church  so  discipline  forms  the  ligaments  which  connect  the  mem- 
bers of  the  body  together  and  keep  each  in  its  proper  place" 
(chap.  12,  §  1).  In  the  exercise  of  its  authority  the  church  must 
admonish  or  visit  with  its  censures  all  sorts  of  offenders,  and  must 
altogether  exclude  from  its  communion  those  guilty  of  flagrant 
sins,  as  well  as  the  contumacious  and  rebellious.  It  is  true  that 
he  recommends  that  severity  be  tempered  with  mercy  and  de- 
nounces the  discipline  of  the  Anabaptists  as  altogether  too  se- 
vere. "  The  same  conduct  [that  is,  the  conduct  of  the  Donatists] 
is  pursued  at  the  present  day  by  the  Anabaptists  who,  acknowl- 
edging no  congregation  to  belong  to  Christ  unless  it  be  in  all  its 
parts  conspicuous  for  angelic  perfection,  under  the  pretext  of 
zeal  destroy  all  edification"  (chap.  12,  §  12).  The  visible  church 
in  fact  must  contain  both  good  and  bad.  Its  character  is  not 
destroyed,  nor  is  its  sanctity  annulled,  by  the  presence  of  the 
latter,  and  so  to  leave  it  as  the  Anabaptists  left  it  because  of 
the  presence  of  unworthy  members  was  quite  unjustifiable 
(chap.  1,  §  19). 

At  the  same  time  although  Calvin,  practical  ecclesiastical 
statesman  rather  than  visionary  enthusiast  as  he  was,  recog- 
nized that  the  visible  church  is  not  and  cannot  be  made  a  body 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church      221 

of  perfect  purity  he  still  insisted  on  the  exercise  of  very  strict 
discipline,  particularly  in  connection  with  the  eucharist,  and  on 
the  constant  watchfulness  of  the  authorities  of  the  church  over 
the  lives  of  its  members. 

"There  are  three  ends  proposed  by  the  church  in  these  cor- 
rections, and  in  excommunication.  The  first  is  that  those  who 
lead  scandalous  and  wicked  lives  may  not,  to  the  dishonor  of 
God,  be  numbered  among  Christians,  as  if  his  holy  church  were 
a  conspiracy  of  vicious  and  abandoned  men.  For  as  the  church 
is  the  body  of  Christ  it  cannot  be  contaminated  with  such  foul 
and  putrid  members  without  some  ignominy  being  reflected 
upon  the  head.  That  nothing  may  exist  in  the  church,  therefore, 
from  which  disgrace  may  be  thrown  upon  his  venerable  name, 
it  is  necessary  to  expel  from  his  family  those  through  whose 
turpitude  infamy  would  redound  to  the  Christian  name"  (chap. 
12,  §5). 

The  exercise  of  discipline  Calvin  entrusted  to  the  officers  of 
the  church.  Here  is  revealed  what  appears  in  many  other  con- 
nections, his  radical  aversion  to  democracy.  He  did  not  trust 
the  ordinary  man  even  though  a  Christian.  He  was  instinctively 
an  aristocrat  in  religion  as  in  civil  affairs,  and  he  felt  that  the 
church  could  be  properly  governed  and  its  character  preserved 
only  as  large  authority  w^as  lodged  in  the  hands  of  its  ministers. 
Their  disciplinary  authority  did  not  rest  upon  the  fact  that  they 
were  successors  of  the  apostles  and  had  received  from  them  a 
deposit  of  saving  grace  which  they  might  dispense  or  withhold 
— in  other  words  it  was  not  sacerdotal — but  upon  the  fact  that 
they  were  ministers  of  the  word.  Because  called  and  com- 
missioned by  God  to  preach  the  word  they  were  also  charged 
with  the  responsibility  of  administering  discipline  in  accordance 
therewith,  but  this  change  of  principle  in  no  way  reduced  clerical 
dignity  and  power.  "Although  the  Lord  alone  ought  to  rule 
and  reign  in  his  church,  and  to  have  pre-eminence  in  it,  and  this 
government  ought  to  be  exercised  and  administered  solely  by 
his  word,  yet  as  he  dwells  not  among  us  in  visible  presence,  he 
uses  the  ministry  of  men  that  he  may  make  his  w^ill  clearly  known 
to  us"  (chap.  3,  §  1).  "This  command  respecting  the  remis- 
sion and  retention  of  sins,  and  the  promise  made  to  Peter  in 
regard  to  binding  and  loosing,  ought  to  be  wholly  referred  to 


222  Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

the  ministry  of  the  word,  which  our  Lord  committed  to  the 
apostles,  at  the  same  time  investing  them  with  this  power  of 
loosing  and  binding.  .  .  .  We  hold  that  the  power  of  the  keys 
in  these  passages  is  simply  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  and  con- 
sidered with  regard  to  men  is  not  so  much  power  as  ministry, 
for  strictly  speaking  Christ  gave  it  not  to  men  but  to  his  word 
of  which  he  appointed  them  ministers"  (chap.  11,  §  1). 

Calvin's  influence  in  promoting  liberty  and  democracy  is 
often  spoken  of  and  counted  to  his  credit.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  was  only  a  limited  liberty  that  he  was  interested  in,  and  to 
democracy  he  was  unalterably  opposed.  He  did  much  to  break 
the  authority  of  the  pope  in  western  Europe  and  so  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  growth  of  a  larger  freedom  in  later  days,  but  he 
was  at  best  only  indirectly  responsible  for  a  development  which 
he  would  have  been  entirely  out  of  sympathy  with  had  he  lived 
to  witness  it. 

In  his  idea  of  the  relation  of  church  and  state  he  also  agreed 
with  Luther  in  part  but  only  in  part.  He  recognized,  as  the 
older  Reformer  did,  the  separate  functions  of  church  and  state 
and  the  sharp  distinction  between  their  spheres.  "Whoever 
knows  how  to  distinguish,"  he  says,  "  between  the  body  and  the 
soul,  between  this  present  transitory  life  and  the  future  eternal 
one,  will  find  no  difficulty  in  understanding  that  the  spiritual 
kingdom  of  Christ  and  civil  government  are  things  very  remote 
from  each  other"  (chap.  20,  §  1).  Civil  magistrates  are  vicege- 
rents of  God  in  their  sphere  as  truly  as  ministers  of  the  church 
are  in  theirs,  but  the  spheres  are  entirely  different.  It  may  be 
remarked  in  passing  that  Calvin  emphasized  in  the  strongest 
possible  fashion  the  divine  right  of  civil  government  and  of  duly 
constituted  governors  and  princes. 

Though  he  drew  a  sharp  distinction  between  church  and  state 
he  followed  Luther  in  laying  upon  the  civil  government  the  re- 
sponsibility "to  cherish  and  support  the  external  worship  of 
God,  to  preserve  the  pure  doctrine  of  religion,  to  defend  the  con- 
stitution of  the  church"  and  to  suppress  "idolatry,  sacrilege, 
blasphemy  and  other  offenses  against  religion"  (chap.  20,  §  2  seq.). 
In  all  this  Luther  and  Calvin  were  at  one,  but  there  was  never- 
theless a  radical  difference  between  them,  for  while  the  former 
gave  civil  rulers  the  power  of  determining  what  true  religion  is, 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  223 

according  to  the  word  of  God,  and  laid  upon  them  the  responsi- 
bility of  supporting  the  true  and  prohibiting  the  false  thus  de- 
termined, the  latter,  in  agreement  with  the  mediaeval  Catholic 
theory,  made  the  state  only  the  servant  of  the  church  in  carrying 
out  its  behests.  It  lies  with  the  church  and  particularly  with  the 
clergy  as  ministers  of  the  word  to  discover  what  is  God's  will 
and  truth,  and  the  civil  government  is  charged  with  the  duty 
of  acting  accordingly.  The  power  of  the  sword  is  not  lodged 
in  the  church  but  only  in  the  state,  but  it  is  to  be  exercised  by  the 
state  for  the  support  of  true  religion  and  for  the  overthrow  of 
its  enemies  who  are  the  enemies  of  God. 

In  Geneva  Calvin's  theocratic  principles  were  put  into  striking 
practice,  and  the  influence  of  his  work  there,  Catholic  as  was  the 
underlying  theory  upon  which  it  was  based,  constituted  western 
Europe's  greatest  bulwark  against  the  encroachments  of  a  re- 
awakened papacy  and  a  regenerated  Catholicism.  He  fought 
fire  with  fire,  and  if  Puritanism  and  the  puritan  states  that  were 
the  fruit  of  his  teaching  and  example  were  not  in  essence  Protes- 
tant they  were  at  any  rate  Rome's  most  vigorous  and  successful 
foes,  and  western  Europe  and  America  owe  to  the  great  genius 
from  whom  they  drew  their  inspiration  an  inestimable  debt  of 
gratitude. 

Calvin's  general  theory  of  the  church  appears  in  greater  or 
less  detail  in  most  of  the  important  confessions  of  the  early 
Reformed  churches  framed  after  his  influence  began  to  be  felt. 
A  few  may  be  referred  to  merely  by  way  of  illustration.  In  the 
French  confession  of  1559,  which  deals  with  the  church  in  arti- 
cles 25  to  32,  special  emphasis  is  put  upon  the  ministry  and  upon 
the  importance  of  having  the  church  governed  according  to 
the  order  established  by  Jesus  Christ.  In  article  28  it  is  said: 
**  We  declare  that  properly  speaking  there  can  be  no  church 
where  the  word  of  God  [that  is,  the  Bible]  is  not  received,  where 
profession  is  not  made  of  subjection  to  it  and  where  the  sacra- 
ments are  not  employed."  Here  the  marks  of  the  church  are 
three,  subjection  to  the  Bible,  that  is,  obedience  to  its  precepts 
in  doctrine,  in  conduct  and  in  ecclesiastical  polity,  being  added 
to  the  two  generally  recognized  marks,  the  word  and  the  sacra- 
ments. 

In  the  first  Scotch  confession  of  1560,  which  was  framed  by 


224      Calvin's  theory  of  the  church 

John  Knox,  there  is  an  article  on  the  church  in  which  the  doc- 
trine of  the  invisible  church  is  clearly  stated  (article  16)  and  an- 
other (article  18)  on  the  notes  of  the  church  which  runs  in  part 
as  follows — "  Because  that  Satan  from  the  beginning  has  labored 
to  deck  his  pestilent  synagogue  with  the  title  of  the  kirk  of  God 
and  has  inflamed  the  hearts  of  cruel  murderers  to  persecute, 
trouble  and  molest  the  true  kirk  and  members  thereof  ...  it 
is  one  thing  most  requisite  that  the  true  kirk  be  discerned  from 
the  filthy  synagogue  by  clear  and  perfect  notes,  lest  we,  being 
deceived,  receive  and  embrace  to  our  own  condemnation  the  one 
for  the  other."  The  notes  are  then  given  as  "the  true  preach- 
ing of  the  word  of  God,"  "  the  right  administration  of  the  sac- 
raments," and  "ecclesiastical  discipline  uprightly  ministered  as 
God's  word  prescribes,  whereby  vice  is  repressed  and  virtue 
nourished."  The  third  note  is  not  identical  with  the  one  given 
in  the  French  confession  but  both  are  alike  true  to  the  spirit 
and  interest  of  Calvin, 

In  the  Belgic  confession  of  1561  it  is  said,  in  article  39,  "We 
believe  that  we  ought  diligently  and  circumspectly  to  discern 
from  the  word  of  God  which  is  the  true  church,  since  all  sects 
in  the  world  assume  to  themselves  the  name  of  church.  .  .  . 
The  marks  by  which  the  true  church  is  known  are  these:  If 
there  is  the  pure  preaching  of  the  gospel;  if  there  is  the  pure  ad- 
ministration of  the  sacraments  as  ordained  by  Christ;  if  church 
discipline  is  exercised  for  the  correction  of  vice;  in  short,  if  all 
things  are  managed  according  to  the  pure  word  of  God,  all  things 
contrary  thereto  rejected,  and  Jesus  Christ  recognized  as  the 
only  head." 

Here  the  three  marks  are  the  same  as  those  given  in  the  Scotch 
confession  and  the  principle  stated  in  the  French  confession  of 
submission  to  the  Bible  in  all  things  is  added,  showing  clearly 
enough  the  identity  of  interest  in  all  three  confessions,  and  their 
complete  oneness  with  Calvin  from  whom  they  all  learned  their 
doctrine  of  the  church. 

That  doctrine,  it  may  be  said  in  conclusion,  was  not  primitive, 
nor  Catholic,  nor  Lutheran,  but  it  contained  features  of  all  the 
older  doctrines  in  a  combination  largely  original  with  Calvin 
and  after  him  characteristic  of  Reformed  Protestantism  for  many 
generations.     From   the   primitive   period   came   the   notion   of 


Calvin's  theory  of  the  church  225 

the  church  as  a  community  of  saints  which  must  hold  itself 
aloof  from  the  world  and  be  kept  pure  by  the  exercise  of  strict 
discipline,  though  here  his  ecclesiastical  statesmanship  and  prac- 
tical sense  kept  him  from  carrying  his  principles  as  far  as  many 
others  did  and  so  reducing  the  church  to  a  mere  puritanic  con- 
venticle. From  Catholicism  came  sacramentalism  and  clerical- 
ism, held  in  check,  however,  on  the  one  hand  by  his  conception 
of  Christian  liberty,  emasculated  though  it  was,  and  on  the  other 
by  the  recognition  of  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Bible,  applied 
in  this  case  with  uncommon  seriousness.  From  Luther  came 
the  notion  of  word  and  sacraments  as  marks  of  the  true  church, 
though  Calvin's  interpretation  of  both,  and  particularly  of  the 
former,  was  such  as  to  displace  Luther's  gospel  of  freedom  with 
a  legalism  as  oppressive  as  that  of  the  Catholics.  Finally,  with 
it  all,  there  came  from  Augustine  through  Wyclif  and  Huss,  the 
doctrine  of  the  invisible  church  as  the  totality  of  the  elect,  a 
doctrine  which  Calvin  succeeded  in  combining  with  his  theory 
of  the  visible  church  better  than  had  ever  been  done  before,  but 
which  tended  to  make  the  church  end  instead  of  means,  and  to 
substitute  the  complacent  enjoyment  of  one's  own  blessings  for 
the  sense  of  duty  to  one's  fellows.  Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  church 
was  a  composite  of  many  diverse  and  inconsistent  elements, 
and,  because  of  this,  confusion  concerning  the  meaning,  place 
and  purpose  of  the  church  has  since  his  day  reigned  almost  every- 
where in  the  reformed  wing  of  Protestantism. 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 
October,  1910. 


XVIII 

THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY  IN 
THE   ANCIENT  CHURCH 

By  John  Winthrop  Platner 

What  was  the  difference  between  pagan  and  Christian  thought 
upon  nature  and  the  world-problem  in  antiquity  ?  It  was  not  that 
the  one  was  wholly  enlightened  and  the  other  wholly  naive,  nor 
was  it  that  the  one  indulged  itself  in  scientific  speculation  while 
the  other  abstained  from  it.  Naive  world-views  were  shared  by 
pagan  and  Christian  alike,  and  cosmological  theorizing  was  never 
developed  to  ampler  proportions  than  among  certain  Christians 
of  the  second  century.  What  Greek  philosophers,  from  Thales 
and  Anaximander  to  the  Stoics,  had  wrought  out  in  world- 
theory  was  known  to  Christian  scholars,  some  of  whom,  them- 
selves trained  in  philosophy,  had  contributions  of  their  own  to 
make  to  the  advancement  of  speculative  thought  on  these  sub- 
jects. Nor  was  it  true  that  Christian  differed  from  pagan  by 
thinking  teleologically.  There  was  in  ancient  times  little  of  the 
objectivity  of  view  in  which  modern  science  glories,  but  rather 
constant  effort  to  reach  some  principle  of  interpretation,  which 
modern  science  profoundly  distrusts.  Socrates  defined  natural 
science  (jrepl  ^vcreco<i  Icnopia)  as  "  the  science  which  has  to  do 
with  the  causes  of  things,  and  which  teaches  why  a  thing  is,  and 
is  created  and  destroyed."  *  This  definition  indicates  with  per- 
fect clearness  the  view  of  the  matter  in  classic  antiquity,  a 
view  which  Christianity  inherited  and  heartily  shared. 

The  fundamental  difference  between  pagan  and  Christian 
was  this,  that  while  Greek  philosophic  speculation  and  discovery 

*  Plato's  Phcedo,  96,  ed.  Burnet,  I,  Oxford,  1900.  Jowett's  translation,  I, 
445,  Oxford,  1871. 

227 


228  THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY 

were  free,  Christian  thinking  along  similar  lines  was  from  com- 
paratively early  times  increasingly  bound.  Limits  were  es- 
tablished beyond  which  it  might  not  pass.  Catholicism, — that 
potent,  excluding,  conserving,  and  unifying  force,  which  for 
at  least  twelve  centuries  controlled  the  church, — created  these 
limits,  and  by  the  exercise  of  ecclesiastical  authority  compelled 
Christian  thought  to  move  safely  within  them.  The  same  in- 
fluence which  operated  to  unify  organization,  worship,  and  creed, 
operated  also  to  suppress  divergence  of  opinion  concerning  mat- 
ters not  properly  connected  with  religion  at  all,  or  even, — as  we 
have  at  last  come  to  see, — with  theology  either. 

At  the  outset  one  is  struck  with  the  general  freedom  of  opin- 
ion on  scientific  subjects  among  Christians  before  and  during 
the  third  century,  as  compared  with  its  increasing  rarity  after 
that  time.  When  the  church  emerged  from  its  position  of  ob- 
scurity and  oppression  into  the  light  of  public  favor  and  the 
pride  of  power,  then  cosmological  speculation  and  all  efforts 
after  scientific  truth  became  merely  so  many  more  or  less  in- 
genious attempts  to  set  forth  what  the  church  held  to  be  the  teach- 
ing of  Scripture  on  the  subject.  For  among  the  standards  of 
ancient  Catholicism,  it  was  especially  the  Scriptures  which 
furnished  a  convenient  and  sufficient  source  from  which  ortho- 
dox knowledge  respecting  nature  and  the  world  might  be  drawn. 
It  is  unimportant  to  inquire  whether  the  literal  or  the  allegori- 
cal method  of  interpretation  was  the  more  to  blame  for  the  pro- 
duction of  crude  and  erroneous  scientific  notions.  The  simple 
fact  is  that  neither  method  as  such,  but  rather  the  Catholic  con- 
ception of  scriptural  authority,  is  chargeable  with  responsibility 
for  the  whole  policy  of  censorship  and  repression  of  opinion. 
Every  novel  and  over-bold  inquiry  was  answered  by  an  official 
disquisition  upon  what  the  book  of  Genesis,  or  Job,  or  Psalms, 
taught  regarding  the  matter  in  hand,  and  woe  to  the  theory 
which  could  not  be  made  to  square  with  these!  It  was  pres- 
ently branded  as  heretical,  or  erroneous,  and  its  obstinate  sup- 
porters found  themselves  excluded  from  the  church.  The 
truth  in  all  such  cases  was  held  to  be  deducible, — or  at  any  rate  it 
was  deduced,^ — from  Scripture,  which,  in  the  famous  words  of 
Augustine,  "gives  no  false  information."  *  It  can  hardly  be  an 
*  De  civ.  del,  xvi,  9. 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY  229 

accident  that  this  appeal  to  Scripture  is  heard  most  clearly 
and  most  confidently  at  the  time  when  the  limits  of  the  sacred 
canon  had  just  been  fixed  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  Chris- 
tendom. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  point  out  that  the  ancient 
church,  along  with  much  that  was  absurd  and  silly,  possessed  also 
a  considerable  amount  of  scientific  information  quite  as  respect- 
able in  quality  as  that  of  the  non-Christian  world,  and  also  to 
indicate  the  process  whereby  the  pursuit  of  scientific  studies 
came  to  be  officially  discouraged  within  the  church, — indeed 
for  about  a  thousand  years  officially  suppressed, — only  to  be  re- 
vived as  soon  as  the  inherent,  coercive  power  of  truth  should 
overcome  the  fear  of  ecclesiastical  penalties. 


We  need  not  pause  over  such  natural  history  as  that  reflected 
in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas.  According  to  the  unknown  author 
of  that  interesting  document,  babies  are  "first  kept  alive  by  honey 
and  then  by  milk";  the  hyena  changes  its  sex  in  regular  alterna- 
tion year  by  year;  and  other  curious  things  are  alleged  to  occur 
in  the  world  of  organic  life.*  Nor  need  we  consider  the  zoologi- 
cal monstrosities  of  the  apocalyptic  literature,  largely  borrowed 
from  Judaism,  for  they  do  not  belong  to  the  realm  of  experi- 
ence. When  for  example  Hermas  tells  us  that  near  Rome  he  met 
a  huge  sea-monster,  one  hundred  feet  long,  raising  a  cloud  of 
dust  as  it  approached  along  the  road, — "its  head  was  as  it  were 
of  pottery,"  and  "from  its  mouth  issued  fiery  locusts," — we  know 
that  the  gentle  Hermas  had  clothed  his  nightmare  in  the  garments 
of  the  current  apocalyptic. f  None  of  this  is  observational 
science  or  even  the  first  steps  towards  it. 

There  are  crudities  of  another  sort  which,  while  far  enough 
removed  from  fact,  do  nevertheless  rest  upon  a  correct  method, 
namely  that  of  observation.  The  only  trouble  is  that  the  ob- 
servations are  mistaken.  Here  belong  Lactantius's  interesting 
assertion  that  the  "secretions  of  the  brain"  escape  through  the 
nose,  and  that  the  wind-pipe  is  made  of  "  soft  bones."  %    Owing 

*  Ep.  Bar?!.  6,  10.  t  Hermas:  The  Shepherd,  Vis.  iv,  1. 

X  Lactantius:  de  opificio  del,  10  f. 


230  THE   REPRESSION  OF   SCIENTIFIC  INQUIRY 

to  the  fragmentary  condition  of  the  text  it  is  not  easy  to  decide 
how  much  sound  knowledge  may  have  lain  concealed  in  that 
curious  mixture  of  fact  and  fancy,  the  Kea-rot  of  Julius  Afri- 
canus.*  Rural  affairs,  medicine,  charms,  geography,  travels, 
and  military  tactics  all  come  in  for  treatment,  and  many  foolish, 
not  to  say  immoral  superstitions  find  a  place.  It  is  clear  enough 
however  that  the  author  had  collected  facts,  as  well  as  curiosi- 
ties, under  his  quaint  title  of  "  Embroidered  Girdles." 

Astrology  proved  to  be  a  prolific  source  of  pseudo-scientific 
theorizing,  especially  among  Christians  of  heretical  tendencies. 
Everyone  is  acquainted  with  the  grotesque  frontispiece,  found 
in  many  modern  advertising  almanacs,  which  depicts  the  human 
body  parceled  out  among  the  signs  of  the  zodiac.  This  astro- 
logical superstition  is  as  old  at  least  as  the  fifth  century,  "that 
monstrous  division  of  the  whole  human  body  among  the  twelve 
signs  of  the  zodiac,"  being  included  by  Leo  I  among  the  errors 
•with  which  "the  filthy  puddle  of  the  Priscillianists "  was  then 
reeking,  f 

II 

More  creditable  to  the  Christians  was  the  open-mindedness 
of  many  of  them  respecting  the  ultimate  problems  to  which  scien- 
tific inquiry  leads  back.  Whence  came  the  world?  What  is 
the  origin  of  things?  The  early  Christians  were  not  nearly  so 
dogmatic  on  the  subject  of  creation  as  some  of  their  later  breth- 
ren. Tertullian,  for  example,  who  could  be  positive  enough 
when  he  chose,  would  not  commit  himself  as  to  whether  "  this 
entire  world-mass  was  self-existent  and  uncreated,  as  Pythag- 
oras maintains,  or  brought  into  being  by  a  Creator's  hands, 
as  Plato  holds."  J  Origen  believed  the  world  to  have  been  cre- 
ated at  a  definite  point  of  time,  but  he  held  that  other  worlds  ex- 
isted before  it,  and  others  still  would  exist  hereafter,  since  it  would 
be  both  impious  and  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  creating  Deity 
should  ever  be  idle.§     Origen  had  already  begun  the  process  of 

*  See  Harnack:  Gesch.  der  altchristl.  Litt.  I,  508  ff.  The  tractate  de  re 
militari,  the  longest  surviving  fragment  of  the  Kearol,  is  printed  in  Veterum 
Mathematicorum  Opera,  pp.  275-316  (Paris,  1693),  and  also  in  loannis  Meursii 
Operum  Vol.  VII,  columns  899-980  (Florence,  1746). 

t  Epistle  15'.  I  Apologeticus  11.  §  De  princip.  iii,  5^. 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY  231 

demonstrating  theories  from  Holy  Scripture,  but  his  position  is 
very  far  from  the  dogmatic  exactness  of  later  ages.* 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  meet  with  a  devout  reticence  on  scien- 
tific subjects  among  the  early  Christians,  many  of  them  evi- 
dently preferring  not  to  venture  too  far  into  the  *  unknown. 
Thus  Irenaeus  hesitates  to  commit  himself  on  such  an  apparently 
harmless  topic  as  the  periodic  overflow^  of  the  river  Nile,  a  phe- 
nomenon which  had  attracted  attention  and  aroused  perplexity 
throughout  the  ancient  world.  "We  may  say  a  great  deal, 
plausible  or  otherwise,  on  the  subject,"  writes  the  Bishop  of 
Lyons,  "but  what  is  true,  sure,  and  incontrovertible  regarding 
it  belongs  only  to  God."t  Hippolytus  knew  of  Anaxagoras's 
theory,  that  the  annual  flood  was  caused  by  melting  snow,  but 
the  only  use  he  makes  of  his  knowledge  is  to  include  it  in  a  lengthy 
catalogue  of  pagan  philosophical  teachings  from  which  he  al- 
leges the  heretics  have  drawn  their  errors. f  Therefore  all  such 
views  are  to  be  held  in  suspicion.  But  we  can  forgive  Hippo- 
lytus his  uncertainty  when  so  well-informed  a  pagan  writer  as 
Ammianus  Marcellinus,  contemplating  "that  most  useful  of 
all  rivers,"  finds  himself  equally  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  Nile's 
overflow,  and  rests  content  with  a  recital  of  what  others  have  be- 
lieved to  be  its  cause. § 

Hippolytus  has  also  heard  of  the  rash  conjecture  of  Anaxagoras 
that  the  sun  surpasses  the  Peloponnesus  in  size,  |1  but  apparently 
not  of  the  still  more  venturesome  hypothesis  of  certain  mathe- 
maticians, reported  by  Cicero,  who  maintained  that  the  sun  is 
"more  than  eighteen  times  larger  than  the  earth." ^  He  does 
not  however  feel  called  upon  to  render  a  decision  on  the  subject. 

Ill 

The  Fathers  exhibit  most  clearly  both  their  limitations  and 
their  approaches  to  sound  knowledge,  w^hen  they  undertake  to 
treat  of  the  world  and  man.     Among  works  of  this  class  three 

*  Precision  was  reached  by  Archbishop  Ussher  whose  Annales  veteris  et  novi 
Testamenti  (1650-54)  placed  the  date  of  the  creation  at  4004  b.c.  This  was 
surpassed  by  his  younger  contemporary,  Dr.  John  Lightfoot,  who  deter- 
mined the  very  day,  namely  the  autumnal  equinox  {Works,  London,  1822  ff. 
iv,  112).  t  Irenaeus:  Adv.  hoer.  ii,  28.  %  Rejutatio,  i,  7. 

§  Res  gest.  xxii,  15.        i|  Refut.  i,  7.  *[[  Cicero:  Academica,  i,  82. 


232  THE    REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY 

may  be  singled  out  for  especial  mention,  Lactantius'  De  opificio 
dei  (to  which  title  Jerone  appends  the  words,  vel  formatiojir 
hominis*),  Basil  of  Csesarea's  Hexaemeron,  and  its  supplement 
by  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  entitled  On  the  Making  of  Man  (jrepl 
KaraaKevrj^;  dvOpoiTrov). 

Lactantius  inveighs  against  "the  folly  of  Epicurus"  and  "the 
ravings  of  Lucretius,"  but  this  is  in  the  interest  of  his  argument 
from  design,  which  he  develops  in  considerable  detail.  Follow- 
ing more  congenial  classical  models,  he  philosophizes  about 
the  human  body,  pointing  out  the  beauty  and  utility  of  its  several 
parts  and  their  admirable  coordination  in  the  whole,  which  in 
turn  is  under  subjection  to  the  ruling  intelligence  or  mind.f 
Crudeness  and  error  are  common,  but  not  constant,  in  Lactantius' 
treatise.  Where  he  goes  most  into  detail,  there  we  see  most 
clearly  that  he  has  been  at  pains  either  to  make  observations  or 
to  read  the  recorded  observations  of  others.  He  not  only  knows 
that  the  tongue,  rather  than  the  palate,  is  the  chief  organ  of 
taste,  but  he  has  discovered  which  parts  of  the  tongue  are  espe- 
cially sensitive. J  He  has  found  out  that  air  passages  extend 
from  the  mouth  to  the  lungs,  as  well  as  from  the  nose.§  AYith 
regard  to  certain  organs,  such  as  the  liver  and  spleen,  he  confesses 
ignorance;  only  the  great  Designer  know^s  their  purpose.  But 
he  seems  to  anticipate  a  time  when  more  will  be  known  about 
these  things.  II 

Especially  interesting  are  Lactantius'  excursions  into  psy- 
chology. Where  the  mind  is  situated  and  what  its  nature  is 
he  does  not  know,  although  he  views  with  favor  the  theory  that 
its  chief  seat  is  the  brain,  but  he  does  not  wholly  scout  the 
notion  that  it  may  be  diffused  throughout  the  entire  body  as 
Xenocrates  the  Platonist  believed.  Is  not  the  divine  mind  simi- 
larly diffused  throughout  the  universe  ?^  On  the  subject  of  sense 
perception  he  approximates  to  modern  theories,  as  one  may  see 
from  his  discussion  of  vision.  Through  the  eyes  "  the  mind  sees 
those  things  which  are  without,"  for  "  the  office  of  seeing  ought 
to  be  in  that  which  sees,  not  in  that  w^hich  is  seen."     In  the  brain 

*  De  viris  illustr.  80.  t  -^^  opif.  dei.  6  ff. 

X  "The  parts  which  are  more  tender  on  either  side  [of  the  tongue],  draw 
in  the  flavor  with  the  most  dehcate  perception."     {De  opif.  dei,  10.) 
§  Ibid.,  11.  II  Ibid.,  14.  If  Ibid.,  16. 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY  233 

"is  contained  the  system  of  the  sensation."*  "Man  himself" 
(i.  e.,  the  Ding  an  sich)  "can  neither  be  touched,  nor  looked 
upon,  nor  grasped,  because  he  lies  hidden  within  this  body,  which 
is  seen."  f  As  to  the  "  soul,"  or  life-principle  in  man,  philosophers 
are  not  agreed  what  it  is,  and  perhaps  they  never  will  be. 
Lactantius  however  thinks  it  worth  while  to  raise  the  question 
whether  mind  and  soul  are  not  the  same  thing.  Finding  argu- 
ments on  both  sides,  he  wisely  leaves  the  question  open.  J 

Gregory  of  Nyssa  in  his  work  On  the  Making  of  Man  like- 
wise displays  a  considerable  acquaintance  with  the  structure  of 
the  human  body.  Here  he  sets  forth  the  raison  d'etre  of  brain, 
heart,  liver,  lungs,  etc.,  and  also  describes  the  organs  themselves, 
indicating  their  position  and  their  several  functions.  There  are 
of  course  many  erroneous  statements  in  the  book.  But  the 
noticeable  fact  is  that  Gregory  is  aware  that  progress  has  been 
made  in  anatomy  and  physiology,  he  is  familiar  with  the  les- 
sons of  the  dissecting  room  and  with  the  writings  of  competent 
investigators,  and  he  by  no  means  makes  light  of  these  things. 
On  the  contrary,  he  freely  utilizes  the  best  knowledge  at  his  com- 
mand,— presenting  his  results  in  the  light  of  the  church's  teach- 
ing, and  giving  to  everything  a  teleological  interpretation.  He 
is  finally  brought  face  to  face  with  the  ultimate  problem  of  the 
nature  of  matter,  but  this,  he  says,  may  be  "left  without  re- 
mark" since  it  has  no  immediate  bearing  upon  his  "consid- 
eration of  the  parts."  §  One  could  wish  that  Gregory  had  not 
been  so  easily  turned  aside  from  this  great  problem. 

Larger  themes  than  the  mere  structure  of  the  body  challenge 
the  attention  of  Basil  in  his  Hcxaemeron,  but  here  again  one 
feels  an  occasional  sense  of  disappointment,  when  some  highly 
promising  line  of  inquiry  is  broken  off  by  the  simple  confession 
of  ignorance.  One  was  justified,  one  feels,  in  expecting  some- 
thing better.  But  this  was  a  very  common  expedient  among 
Christian  writers  in  the  transition  period  of  the  fourth  century. 
Basil  appears  actually  to  have  weighed  in  his  mind  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  the  geocentric  and  heliocentric  theories  of  the  uni- 
verse,— without  of  course  appreciating  the  problem  in  anything 
like  its  full  significance.     An  earlier  Christian  writer,  Methodius, 

*  Ihul,  8  and  10.  t  Ihid,  19.  %  Ibid.,  17  f. 

§  Greg.  Nyssse:   irepl  KaTaerKevrj^  ivdpwwov,  30. 


234  THE   EEPRESSION  OF   SCIENTIFIC  INQUIRY 

had  allowed  one  of  the  characters  in  his  Symposium  to  ridicule  the 
accepted  Ptolemaic  view,*  but  we  must  not  therefore  hastily 
conclude  that  he  held  the  true  theory.  Even  Cosmas  combatted 
Ptolemy, — but  he  did  it  in  the  interest  of  his  extraordinary  cos- 
mography, as  we  shall  presently  see.  Basil  must  have  regarded 
the  heliocentric  theory  as  at  least  possible,  but  instead  of  pur- 
suing the  inquiry  to  its  utmost  limit,  he  again  contents  himself 
with  the  remark,  "  If  there  is  anything  in  this  system  which  might 
appear  probable  to  you,  keep  your  admiration  for  the  source  of 
such  perfect  order,  for  the  wisdom  of  God."  f 

IV 

We  have  already  noticed  the  sympathetic  acquaintance  of 
many  early  Christian  writers  with  the  scientific  hypotheses  of 
the  ancient  world.  To  be  sure  the  Christians  are  sometimes 
ironical,  sometimes  even  scornful  in  referring  to  these  views, — 
but  not  always.  Tertullian,  the  Carthaginian  lawyer,  speaks 
flippantly  of  an  age  long  past  when  the  earth  is  said  to  have  been 
covered  with  water:  "To  this  day  marine  conches  and  tri tons' 
horns  sojourn  as  foreigners  on  the  mountains,  eager  to  prove  to 
Plato  that  the  heights  have  undulated."  J  It  was  rather  early 
for  appeal  to  be  taken  to  geology  in  computing  the  age  of  our 
planet.  He  is  less  scornful  in  his  reference  to  the  fabled  Atlantis, 
described  by  Plato  §  and  familiar  to  every  lover  of  the  classics. 
Lying  westward  from  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  in  size  exceeding  Asia 
Minor  and  Libya  combined,  inhabited  by  a  powerful  people, 
dread  foes  of  the  foremost  nation  of  Europe,  this  island  had  been 
swallowed  up  by  the  all-devouring  sea  not  less  than  nine  thousand 
years  before  the  Athenian  lawgiver,  Solon,  that  is,  in  the  tenth 
millennium  before  the  Christian  era,  or  six  thousand  years  before 
Archbishop  Ussher  permitted  the  world  to  be  created.  Ter- 
tullian found  Plato's  fable  useful  in  rebutting  the  popular  charge 
that  all  great  calamities  were  due  to  the  presence  of  Christians 
in  the  world.  There  had  been  calamities  before.  Accordingly 
he  does  not  attempt  to  discredit  the  story,  although  his  satirical 
tone  suggests  that  it  scarcely  meets  his  approval.  || 

*  Symposium,  viii,  14.       f  Hexaemeron,  i,  10.        J  Tertullian:  De  pallio,  2. 
§  Timoeus,  24  f.,  ed.  Burnet,  vol.  iv,  Oxford,  1905. 
II  Ad  nationes,  i,  9,  Apologeticus,  40,  De  pallio,  2. 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY  235 

That  there  were  worlds  beyond  the  ocean,  apart  from  fables, 
was  a  very  ancient  and  wide-spread  belief,  resting  upon  what 
foundations,  however,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine.  It  is  at 
least  as  old  as  Aristotle.*  Adventurous  Carthaginian  navigators, 
blown  before  a  storm,  claimed  to  have  visited  such  a  land,t 
and  nobody  seriously  doubted  their  claim.  Western  Christians 
seem  early  to  have  accepted  the  traditional  belief  in  transoceanic 
lands,  although  they  held  the  intervening  sea  to  be  impassable,t 
and  were  apparently  not  interested  in  Seneca's  striking  pre- 
diction that  a  time  would  come  when  the  ocean  gateway  would 
be  unbarred. §  Before  the  end  of  the  second  century  a  more 
hesitant  tone  is  heard  among  the  Christian  writers,  and  a  dis- 
position to  be  non-committal  manifests  itself.  Things  which 
transcend  our  knowledge  should  be  left  with  God,  writes  Ire- 
nteus,  and  in  this  he  includes,  among  other  things,  "  what  lies  be- 
yond the  ocean."  II  But  Irenaeus  is  acquainted  with  the  opinion 
that  there  are  such  lands.  A  half-century  or  so  later  Origen  cites 
the  passage  from  Clement  of  Rome,  finding  in  it  a  hint  at  a 
plurality  of  worlds, — an  idea  quite  foreign  to  Clement,  but 
which  Origen  could  use  to  advantage  in  his  speculative  system.^ 
Anything  like  an  intelligent  use  of  the  old  suggestion  disap- 
pears in  the  haze  of  the  Alexandrian's  allegorical  fancy. 


The  most  interesting  form  of  the  classical  belief  in  far-off 
lands  was  that  relating  to  the  antipodes,  the  existence  of  which 
had  been  asserted  by  Anaximander  **  and  other  Greek  philoso- 

*  Meteorologicorum  lib.  ii,  5. 

t  Diodorus:    Bibliotheca  historica,  v,  19  f.  (ed.  Vogel,  Leipzig,  1890).     For 
the  best  sketch  of  ancient  opinion  on  this  subject,  see  Alex,  von  Humboldt: 
Examen  critique  de  I'histoire  de  geographic  du  nouveau  continent,  p.  14  ff.  (Paris, 
1814-'34). 
t  Clement  of  Rome:  Ep.  20. 

§  Venient  annis  soecula  seris 
Quibtis  oceanus  vincula  rerum 
Laxet  et  ingens  pateat  tellus. 
Medea,  ii,  375  ff.     Further  information  about  a  western  land  is  found 
in  Plutarch;  see  especially  Moralia,  recog.  Bernardakis,  v.  459  ff.  (Leipzig, 
1893),  Goodwin's  translation,  v,  281  ff.  (Boston,  1878). 

II  Adv.  hoer.  ii,  28".  ^  De  princip.  ii,  3". 

**  According  to  Hippolytus:  Refut.  i,  5. 


236  THE    REPKESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQLHRY 

phers.*  Seneca  makes  playful  allusion  to  Vergil's  lines  which 
imply  the  acceptance  of  this  view: 

"And  when  to  us  the  dayspring  doth  appear, 
And  blushing  morn  shows  Phoebus'  steeds  are  near, 
To  them  the  ruddy  eve  with  weaker  light 
Kindles  the  lightsome  tapers  of  the  night."  f 

"Your  friends,"  writes  Cicero,  "allege  that  directly  opposite 
to  us  on  the  farther  side  of  the  earth  are  people  who  stand  with 
feet  over  against  our  feet,  and  these  you  call  antipodes."  X  This 
theory  is  openly  ridiculed  by  Christian  writers  from  about 
300  A.  D.  onward.  Lactantius  has  a  short  and  easy  method 
with  such  "  marvellous  fancies,"  and  he  triumphantly  flings  down 
his  challenge,  "Is  there  anyone  so  senseless  as  to  believe  that 
there  are  men  whose  footsteps  are  higher  than  their  heads? 
.  .  .  that  the  crops  and  trees  grow  downwards?  that  the  rains 
and  snow  and  hail  fall  upwards  to  the  earth?"  §  About  twelve 
hundred  years  later  another  good  churchman,  a  Spanish  mission- 
ary in  Peru,  gently  corrected  his  derisive  predecessors,  on  the 
ground  of  personal  knowledge  of  the  antipodes.  He  had  actually 
been  there.  || 

Lactantius  attributes  the  fictitious  belief  in  antipodes  to  an- 

*  Lactantius:  Div.  instit.  iii,  24. 

t  Epist.  moral,  xx,  5  (122),  init.  (ed.  C.  R.  Fickert,  Leipz.  1842).  The 
quotation  is  from  Vergil's  Georg.  i,  250  f. 

Nosque  uhi  primus  equis  Oriens  adflauit  anhelis, 
Illis  sera  ruhens  accendit  lumina  Vesper. 

X  Vos  etiam  dicitis  esse  e  regione  nobis,  e  contraria  parte  terrce,  qui  aduersis 
itestigiis  stent  contra  nostra  uestigia,  quos  antipodas  uocatis.  Academicorum 
priorum,  ii,  123,  ed.  J.  S.  Reid  (London,  1885).  See  his  Eng.  transl.,  p.  80  f. 
(London,  1880),  and  of.  Tusculan  Disputations,  v,  24. 

§  Div.  instit.  iii,  24. 

II  "  Lactantius  Firmian  and  S.  Augustine  mocke  at  such  as  hold  there  be 
any  Antipodes,  which  is  as  much  to  say,  as  men  marching  with  their  feete 
opposite  to  ours.  .  .  .  But  whatsoever  he  [Lactantius]  saieth,  wee  that  live 
now  at  Peru,  and  inhabite  that  part  of  the  world  which  is  opposite  to  Asia 
and  their  Antipodes  (as  the  Cosmographers  do  teach  us)  finde  not  our  selves 
to  bee  hanging  in  the  aire,  our  heades  downward,  and  our  feete  on  high." 
Jos^  de  Acosta:  Natural  and  Moral  History  of  the  Indies,  reprinted  (for  the 
Hakluyt  Society)  from  the  Enghsh  translation  of  Edward  Grimeston,  1604. 
I.  Natural  History,  chap.  7  (London,  1880).  Andrew  D.  White  quotes  part 
of  this  passage  from  Acosta  in  his  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,  i,  110, 
note. 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY  237 

Other  fiction,  namely  "  that  the  w  orld  is  round  like  a  ball,"  * 
which  likewise  was  an  hypothesis  widely  current  in  antiquity,  f 
Theophilus  of  Antioch,  a  contemporary  of  IreniEUS,  is  acquainted 
with  this  view,  although  he  does  not  accept  it  any  more  than  he 
does  the  apparently  equally  reasonable  hypothesis  that  the  earth 
is  cubical.^  The  idea  of  sphericity  is  opposed  a  little  later  by 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea,§  and  is  passed  over  as  useless  by  Basil 
the  Great;  since  Moses  is  silent  respecting  the  shape  of  the 
earth,  shape  must  be  unimportant;  why  then  concern  ourselves 
about  it?  II 

Augustine  applies  the  principle  of  ecclesiastical  authority  to 
the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  antipodes  and  all  that  goes 
with  it.  Their  existence  is  not  only  incredible, — a  fable  produced 
by  mere  conjecture, — but  it  is  also  contradicted  by  plain  infer- 
ences from  Scripture,  which  tells  us  the  truth  and  nothing  but 
the  truth. ^  Here  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  a  new  situ- 
ation within  the  church.  Lactantius,  be  it  observed,  rejects 
the  theories  of  the  philosophers,  when  he  does  reject  them,  on 

*  Loc.  cit. 

t  So  Plato:  "The  earth  is  a  round  body  in  the  centre  of  the  heavens," 
(Phoedo,  108).  Similarly  Aristotle:  "The  earth  also  has  necessarily  a  spherical 
figure.  .  .  .  Hence  too  those  who  apprehend  that  the  place  about  the  Pillars 
of  Hercviles  connects  that  which  is  about  India,  and  thus  that  there  is  one  sea, 
do  not  appear  to  think  very  absurdly."  {axvt^^  S'exf'"  <r(paipo€idis  dvayKawv 
air-fjv  .  .  .  dib  toi)s  viroXafi^dvovrai  ovvairreiv  top  irepl  ras  'HpaKXeiovs  (rr^Xas 
rbirov  Tip  irepl  rrjv  IvSiK-qv,  Kal  tovtov  rhv  Tpbirov  elvai  r^v  ddXarrav  fiiav,  ht}  \Lav 
viroXapL^dveiv  diri<7Ta  doKuv).  De  ccelo,  ii,  14  {Aristotelis  opera  omnia,  ii,  Paris, 
1850).  Aristotle  proceeds  to  say  that  the  earth's  circumference  has  been 
computed  at  only  about  400,000  stadia,  which  makes  it  altogether  likely  that 
it  is  small  in  comparison  with  other  stars.  The  geographer  Strabo  thus  re- 
ports the  views  of  Eratosthenes,  which  he  in  part  accepts:  "The  temperate 
zone,  which  we  have  already  designated  as  the  longest  zone,  is  that  which 
the  mathematicians  denominate  a  continuous  circle  returning  upon  itself, 
{kxikKov  ffvu^dWovffav  ovtt/j'  eavry).  So  that,  if  the  extent  of  the  Atlantic  ocean 
were  not  an  obstacle,  we  might  easily  pass  by  sea  from  Iberia  to  India,  still 
keeping  in  the  same  parallel.  .  .  ."  {Strabonis  Geographica,  i,  4,  ed.  Meineke, 
Leipz.  1866,  i,  85.) 

Cicero  has  a  notable  passage  on  the  shape  and  the  revolution  of  the  earth 
in  connection  with  what  he  writes  of  the  antipodes:  Hicetas  Syracosius,  nt 
ait  Theophrastus,  cceluin  solem  lunam  Stellas,  supera  denique  omnia  stare  censet 
neque  proeter  terram  rem  ullam  in  mundo  moueri,  quae  cum  circum  axem  se 
summa  celeritate  conuertat  et  torqueat,  eadem  efflci  omnia,  quae  si  stante  terra 
caelum  moueretur."     (Academica,  ii,  123.) 

t  Ad  Aidolyc.  ii,  32.  §  Proep.  evang.  xv,  56  ff. 

II  Basil:  Hexaemeron,  ix,  1.  If  De  civ.  del,  xvi,  9. 


238  THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY 

the  ground  of  their  irrationality,  not  by  appealing  to  an  external 
ecclesiastical  standard.  But  the  dilemma,  rational  or  irrational, 
no  longer  suffices  for  Augustine.*  The  century  which  had  in- 
tervened was  the  precise  period  when  Catholic  authority  was 
being  worked  out  into  a  practical  principle.  And  Augustine 
defines  its  scope  more  clearly  than  any  of  his  predecessors  or 
contemporaries,  f — once  even  going  so  far  as  to  affirm  that  he 
would  not  believe  the  Gospel  itself,  except  for  the  authority  of 
the  church.  J 

VI 

The  fully  developed  application  of  ecclesiastical  authority  to 
the  domain  of  knowledge  is  found  in  a  work  of  the  sixth  century, 
the  Christian  Topography  of  Cosmas,  surnamed  Indicopleustes. 
The  author  was  a  learned  Egyptian  merchant,  traveller,  and 
monk,  who  had  seen  much  of  the  ancient  world,  and  recorded 
his  information  (and  misinformation)  in  this  important  treatise, 
with  the  special  aim  of  combatting  the  theory  that  the  earth  is 
a  sphere.  The  book  is  conclusive  evidence  that  there  were  still 
not  a  few  Christians  who  held  that  theory,  notwithstanding  the 
opposition  which  had  been  exerted  by  influential  churchmen  for 
more  than  two  hundred  years. § 

According  to  Cosmas  the  "world,"  that  is  the  universe,  is  an 
oblong  structure,  shaped  like  an  old-fashioned  Saratoga  trunk 
with  a  rounded  top,||  or  (to  use  his  own  metaphor),  "a  house, 
as  one  might  call  it,  of  enormous  size,  like  an  oblong  vaulted 
vapor-bath."  ^     Our  earth  is  a  flat  parallelogram,  forming  the 

*  So  Acosta  rightly  understands  him:  "The  reason  which  moved  S.  Augus- 
tine to  deny  the  Antipodes  was  other  than  that  formerly  alleadged,  being  of 
a  higher  judgement.  .  .  .  Doubtlesse  he  drew  the  motive  and  cause  from  the 
bowels  of  divinitie,  whereby  the  holie  Writ  doth  teach  us  that  all  mankinde 
doth  come  from  the  first  man  Adam;  and  to  say  that  men  could  passe  to  that 
new  world,  crossing  the  great  Ocean,  were  uncredible,  and  a  meere  lye." 
(De  Acosta:  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Indies,  i,  8.) 

t  Except  perhaps  his  younger  contemporary,  Vincent  of  Lerinum. 

X  Ego  vero  evangelio  non  crederem  nisi  me  catholicoe  ecclesioe  commoveret 
auctoritas.     {Contra  ep.  Manich.  6.) 

§  KofffMa  aiyviTTiov  fjiovaxov  xP'<'"'''o«'tK7)  Toiroypa<f>la.  The  Christian  Topog- 
raphy of  Cosmas,  an  Egyptian  Monk.  Translated  from  the  Greek  by  J.  W. 
McCrindle.     (London,  Hakluyt  Society,  1897.) 

II  See  Plate  I,  fig.  7,  at  the  back  of  McCrindle's  translation. 

^  Christian  Topography,  ii,  129. 


THE   REPRESSION  OF  SCIENTIFIC  INQUIRY  239 

lower  part  of  the  "  house."  Its  outer  sides,  beyond  the  surround- 
ing ocean,  are  bounded  by  high  walls,  and  overhead,  separated 
from  the  earth  by  the  "firmament,"  is  the  cylindrical  vault  of 
heaven,  which  thus  forms  an  upper  story  of  the  "house."  *  In 
view  of  this  theory  it  is  of  course  impossible  that  the  earth  should 
be  a  sphere, — indeed  it  is  "quite  inconsistent  with  the  nature  of 
things."  As  for  the  antipodes,  they  are  "old  wives'  fables," 
and  the  mere  mention  of  them  is  prohibited  by  the  plain  teach- 
ings of  Scripture,  f 

One  notes  an  unconscious  mingling  of  reason  and  authority 
in  Cosmas*  book.  The  earth,  he  tells  us,  belongs  at  the  bottom 
of  the  whole  structure  because  it  is  heavier  than  anything  else 
and  would  naturally  sink.  X  Heaven,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
vaulted  arch,  in  accordance  with  Old  Testament  prophecy.§ 
Yet  it  is  certain  that  Cosmas  meant  to  rely  ultimately  upon  the 
authority  of  Scripture  in  establishing  his  views.  "We  have 
advanced  the  foregoing  conclusions,"  he  writes,  "as  expressive 
of  the  true  Christian  theory,  having  been  moved  to  accept  them 
by  divine  Scripture,  for  they  are  not  inventions  or  conjectures 
of  our  own,  but  we  have  strictly  followed  what  God  has  spoken 
to  us  through  the  prophets  and  the  Apostles  and  his  own  Son."|| 
It  is  simple  truth  to  say  that  Cosmas  was  honest  in  believing 
the  whole  of  his  absurd  system  to  be  in  harmony  with  Scripture, 
and  to  be  its  sure  exposition.  If  what  the  Bible  was  supposed 
to  teach  about  the  world  was  rational,  well  and  good.  If  not, 
its  authority  was  still  paramount.  What  was  man  that  he  should 
presumptuously  dispute  the  church?  With  William  of  Occam, 
Cosmas  might  have  said  that  even  if  ecclesiastical  doctrine  were 
much  more  irrational  than  any  of  it  is,  it  must  still  remain  obli- 
gatory upon  all  Catholics,  because  it  rests  upon  the  indubitable 
authority  of  the  church.^     What  the  Indian  navigator  shows 

*  See  the  summary  given  in  Book  iv. 

t  Op.  cU.  i,  117,  121,  ii,  157. 

X  Op.  cit.,  ii,  128.  He  also  gives  other  reasons.  Reason  apparently  led 
Acosta  to  a  different  conclusion,  and  it  is  difficult  to  doubt  that  he  had  Cosmas 
in  mind  when  he  wrote  of  the  "gross  error  "  of  supposing  that  the  universe 
is  like  a  house,  having  the  earth  for  its  foundation  and  heaven  for  a  covering. 
{Natural  History  of  the  Indies,  i,  7.) 

§  Ibid.,  ii,  129,  referring  to  Is.  40^^  (Sept.).  ||  Ibid.,  ii,  158  (end). 

f  Loofs:  Leitfaden  zum  Studium  der  Dogmengeschichte,  p.  609.   C4th  ed.  1906.) 


240  THE   REPRESSION   OF   SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY 

US  is  not  so  much  the  extent  of  his  ignorance, — he  is  really  a  very 
learned  man, — but  rather  the  power  over  men's  minds  already 
exercised  by  mediaeval  Catholicism. 


VII 

The  attitude  of  the  church  towards  natural  science  from  the 
sixth  century  onward  was  much  simpler  than  before.  There 
was  no  longer  a  wide  margin  of  doubt  as  to  what  and  how 
Christians  should  believe.  Cosmography,  like  doctrinal  theology 
proper,  became  fixed  and  stereotyped,  and  there  was  an  ortho- 
doxy of  nature  as  truly  as  of  God.  The  truth  was  settled  for 
the  people  by  the  doctors,  and  the  rank  and  file  needed  not  to 
concern  themselves  with  endeavoring  to  know  what  it  was; 
the  church  knew,  and  that  sufficed.  The  principle  of  "implicit 
faith"  was  capable  of  application  to  every  department  of  inquiry, 
and  momentous  consequences  followed  Gregory  the  Great's 
famous  interpretation  of  the  oxen  and  the  asses*  in  Job  1". 
Under  the  skillful  treatment  of  Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  Peter  the 
Lombard,  and  Thomas  Aquinas  f  this  principle  was  so  thor- 
oughly established  that  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  it  directly 
discouraged  the  advancement  of  learning.  What  was  true  of 
sacred  knowledge  was  still  more  true  of  what  lay  outside  the 
theological  domain.  Ecclesiasticism  had  for  the  time  being 
set  its  premium  upon  ignorance,  and  in  two  ways:  first,  by  erect- 
ing as  a  standard  of  scientific  truth  a  book,  whose  sole  function 
should  have  been  to  teach  religion;  and,  secondly,  by  the  syste- 
matic discouragement  of  independent  inquiry.  There  were  sur- 
vivals here  and  there  of  the  older  Christian  freedom,  as  for  in- 
stance in  the  writings  of  John  Scotus  Erigena  and  Roger  Bacon, 
but  these  were  suffered  to  pass  unchallenged  rather  through  over- 

*  Quid  aliud  in  figura  per  hoves  quam  bene  operantes?  Quid  alivd  per  asinas 
quam  quosdam  simpliciter  viventes  accipimus?  (cited  by  Hoffmann:  Lehre 
von  der  Fides  Implicita,  p.  40  f.  Leipz.  1903.) 

t  Unde  in  Job:  boves  arabant  et  asinoe  pascebant  juxta  eos.  Isti  erant 
asinoe  pascentes  juxta  boves.  Sicut  hodie  in  ecclesia  multi  simplices,  etsi  ita 
distincte  nesciant  trinitatem  assignare,  credunt  tamen,  quia  in  fide  et  huniilitate 
adhcerent  illis,  qui  et  hoc  sciunt  et  credunt.  (Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  cited  by 
Hoffmann,  p.  50.)  The  principle  is  set  forth  with  admirable  lucidity  by 
Thomas  Aquinas,  in  his  Quastiones  disputatce,  xiv,  11. 


THE   REPRESSION   OF  SCIENTIFIC   INQUIRY  241 

sight  than  through  approval.*    The  poHcy  of  the  church  was 
fixed. 

But  while  mediaeval  Catholicism  must  bear  the  responsi- 
bility for  having  inaugurated  and  long  maintained  an  obscu- 
rantist policy  with  reference  to  scientific  studies,  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  said  on  the  other  side.  Those  who  are  loudest  in 
denunciation  of  her  stupid  bigotry  in  adhering  to  an  impossible 
world-view  and  defending  it  by  the  illegitimate  weapons  of 
ecclesiastical  authority  and  false  exegesis, — who  remember  the 
condemnation  of  the  heliocentric  theory  in  astronomy  and  the 
trial  of  Galileo  before  the  Inquisition, — often  forget  that  the 
great  astronomer,  Copernicus,  was  a  loyal  son  of  the  church, 
himself  in  holy  orders,  and  that  his  epoch-making  book,  De 
revolutionibus  orbium  coBlestium,  was  dedicated  to  Pope  Paul 
Ill.f  After  all  is  said,  one  should  remember  that  it  was  in  this 
same  intolerant  church  that  the  learning  of  antiquity  as  well  as 
of  the  middle  ages  was  preserved,  and  at  her  bosom  were 
nourished  children  who  should  in  time  break  down  false  barriers 
and  once  more  make  both  religion  and  science  free. 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  July  30,  1910. 

*  Erigena's  extraordinary  treatise,  De  divisione  naturce,  enjoyed  a  limited 
circulation  for  nearly  four  centuries  before  a  pope  discovered  that  it  "teemed 
with  the  worms  of  heretical  depravity."  (Bull  of  Honorius  III,  Inimicus 
homo,  Jan.  23,  1225.) 

t  For  the  condemnation  of  Copernicus'  views  see  the  decree  of  the  Con- 
gregation of  the  Index,  in  1616,  in  Mirbt's  Quellen  zur  Geschichte  des  Papst- 
tums,  p.  280.    (2d  ed.  1901.) 


XIX 

THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMAND  FOR  UNITY :  ITS  NATURE 
AND   IMPLICATIONS 

By  William  Adams  Brown 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  recent  movement  of  thought  known  as 
Pragmatism  has  been  to  raise  anew  the  question  as  to  the  nature 
and  the  extent  of  the  rehgious  interest  in  unity.  Various  mo- 
tives have  combined  to  render  this  question  a  vital  one  for  re- 
ligion. The  curiosity  of  the  mind  as  to  the  nature  of  ultimate 
reality  is  re-enforced  in  the  case  of  religious  men  by  their  de- 
sire for  the  supremacy  of  the  good,  and  the  more  intensely  they 
realize  the  gap  which  separates  the  world  of  actual  experience 
from  the  world  of  the  divine  ideal,  the  more  acute  must  be  their 
longing  for  some  assurance  that  the  gulf  is  not  an  impassable 
one,  but  that  in  some  way  and  at  some  time  God  will  make  his 
control  manifest  and  bring  about  the  complete  supremacy  of  the 
right.  So  it  has  come  to  pass  that  in  every  age,  the  Theodicy, 
or  the  question  of  God's  relation  to  evil,  has  held  a  central  place 
in  Christian  theology. 

In  the  older  theology,  the  aflfirmation  of  God's  complete  con- 
trol was  consistent  with  a  clear  recognition  of  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence which  seem  inconsistent  with  a  monistic  view  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  fact  of  sin,  with  its  tragic  challenge  and  its  appalling 
consequences,  meets  us  on  every  page.  Theologians  of  all 
schools,  Roman  and  Protestant,  Arminians  as  Calvinists,  feel 
that  in  dealing  with  so  far-reaching  a  phenomenon  no  half-way 
measures  will  do.  Whatever  unity  religious  faith  may  ulti- 
mately build  up  in  a  world  which  seems  so  hopelessly  divided, 
it  must  take  its  departure  from  the  actual  dualism  of  experience. 
So  Catholicism  makes  its  great  contrast  between  the  Church 
and  the  world;  Calvinism  between  the  elect  and  the  non-elect." 

243 


244  THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY 

Arminianism  between  the  right  and  the  wrong  choice.  Each 
deals  with  an  absolute  antithesis — a  contrast,  the  significance  and 
reach  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate.  For  each  the  world 
of  experience  is  divided  into  two  rival  realms;  nature  and  the 
supernatural;  the  secular  and  the  religious;  the  world  of  law  and 
the  world  of  grace;  the  dominion  of  sin  and  the  sphere  of  salva- 
tion; the  city  of  Satan  and  the  city  of  God. 

We  are  not  concerned  here  with  the  various  methods  by  which 
the  older  theology  tried  to  overcome  this  antithesis.  In  the  case 
of  the  official  Roman  theology  this  was  done  by  a  complex  ma- 
chinery through  which  the  Church,  the  divinely  appointed  rep- 
resentative of  God  on  earth,  made  its  authority  progressively 
effective  in  the  territory  of  its  rival,  and  subdued  his  subjects  to 
its  allegiance.  In  Arminianism  it  was  secured  through  a  self- 
limitation  of  God,  manifested  in  the  gift  of  freedom, — a  self- 
limitation,  such  that  the  apparent  failure  which  was  its  result 
was  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  defeat  of  God,  but  only  as  the  means 
which  he  had  voluntarily  chosen  to  secure  a  larger  good,  namely 
the  union  of  free  beings  with  himself  by  their  own  voluntary 
choice.  In  Calvinism,  most  daring  but  also  most  consistent  of 
the  older  systems,  the  dualism  was  carried  back  into  the  nature 
of  God  himself,  and  the  double  outcome  of  the  universe  explained 
through  a  divine  decree  which  required  such  a  divided  issue — 
the  salvation  of  the  elect  for  "the  praise  of  his  glorious  grace" 
but  no  less  the  condemnation  of  the  reprobate  for  "the  praise 
of  his  glorious  justice."  What  interests  us  here  is  the  fact  that 
in  each  case  the  contrast  which  suggests  the  problem  remains 
unmodified.  The  unity  which  is  finally  obtained  is  consistent 
with  a  full  recognition — and  what  is  more  important — with  an  ad- 
equate emotional  valuation,  of  the  actual  dualism  of  experience. 

With  the  rise  of  modern  science  we  find  the  introduction  of  a 
new  factor.  Here  the  intellectual  motive,  which  underlies  phi- 
losophy, and  the  practical  motive,  which  inspires  religion,  are  re- 
enforced  by  a  third,  which  partakes  of  the  nature  of  both.  Science 
shares  the  theoretical  interest  of  philosophy,  in  that  it  is  in  search 
of  principles  or  rules  of  thought — laws,  as  we  somewhat  inac- 
curately call  them — but  it  shares  also  the  practical  interest  of 
religion,  in  that  the  problems  which  it  seeks  to  solve  are  set  for 
it  by  a  definite  set  of  human  experiences,  and  their  solution  will 


THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR  UNITY  245 

lead,  if  successful,  to  the  possession  of  practical  powers  of  great 
importance  to  human  welfare  and  happiness.  Philosophy  had 
dreamed  of  unity;  religion  had  prophesied  it.  Science  has  set 
itself  the  task  of  achieving  it.  This  it  does  by  taking  the  recalci- 
trant facts  which  elude  generalization,  and  putting  them  in  their 
places  as  parts  of  a  consistent  and  orderly  whole;  and — what  is 
even  more  important — by  showing  us  how,  when  so  related  and 
ordered,  they  lend  themselves  to  a  practical  use,  or  at  least  con- 
trol, possible  in  no  other  way.  An  age  of  science,  such  as  ours  is, 
must,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  be  pre-eminently  an  age  of 
unity. 

The  great  idealistic  systems  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  the 
emotional  counterpart  of  the  modern  scientific  movement.  In 
part  they  anticipate  its  results,  in  part  they  accompany  and  in- 
terpret it.  In  the  writings  of  Hegel  and  his  successors,  the  unity 
of  which  science  is  in  search  is  pictured  as  already  attained,  and 
the  entire  process  of  the  universe  is  represented  as  the  unfolding 
of  the  logic  of  the  immanent  idea.  God,  or  the  Absolute,  is  the 
one  all-comprehending  reality,  and  finite  experience,  in  all  its 
phases,  is  but  the  objectivication  of  his  infinite  thought.  Ap- 
parent contradictions  find  their  reconciliation  in  the  higher  syn- 
thesis of  his  all  embracing  intuition.  What  seems  to  us  evil 
appears  from  the  divine  point  of  view  but  as  good  in  the  making. 
Death  is  the  gateway  to  life,  ignorance  to  knowledge,  sin  to 
salvation.  Thus,  by  the  magic  of  the  formula,  the  wizard 
Thought  unlocks  mysteries  hitherto  deemed  insoluble,  and,  for 
the  first  time,  in  the  world  of  absolute  idealism,  presents  us  with 
a  universe  in  which  unity  is  not  simply  an  ideal,  but  an  attainment. 

The  effect  of  this  transformation  is  nowhere  more  apparent 
than  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  Here  the  contradictions  of  life 
had  been  most  acutely  felt,  and  here,  therefore,  their  resolution 
produced  results  most  revolutionary.  The  absolute  contrasts 
of  the  old  religion  are  now  reduced  to  relatives.  Nature  and  the 
supernatural  are  not  two  kinds  of  reality,  but  two  aspects  of 
one  and  the  same  experience.  Sin  is  not  an  appalling  catastro- 
phe; it  is  an  element  in  every  normal  ethical  experience.  Atone- 
ment is  not  the  great  exception;  it  is  the  universal  law.  Christi- 
anity is  not  the  only  religion  of  salvation  for  a  world  otherwise 
hopelessly  sunk  in  ignorance  and  corruption;  it  is  the  culmina- 


246  THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR  UNITY 

tion  of  a  series  of  ascending  steps  through  which,  age  by  age,  God 
has  been  progressively  training  mankind  for  himself.  Incarnation 
is  the  necessary  expression  in  fact  of  the  logic  of  the  immanent 
idea;  and  if  we  had  no  record  of  Jesus'  life  and  teachings  in  the 
Gospel,  we  could  still  have  predicted  his  appearance  as  infalli- 
bly as  the  astronomer  can  detect  the  presence  of  some  unseen 
planet  or  anticipate  the  reappearance  of  a  vanished  comet. 

The  great  theological  systems  of  the  latter  half  of  the  last 
century,  were  written  by  men  who  w^ere  under  the  spell  of  these 
daring  generalizations.  Dorner,  Martensen,  Biedermann,  Pflei- 
derer  and  Frank,  to  mention  only  a  few  out  of  many,  take  up  the 
task  where  Hegel  had  laid  it  down,  and  try,  each  in  his  own  way 
and  by  his  own  methods,  to  make  of  Christian  theology  a 
speculative  philosophy  which  shall  fit  all  the  facts  of  human  ex- 
perience into  place  as  parts  of  a  consistent  and  all-embracing 
world  view.  In  England  Greene  and  the  Cairds  have  carried 
on  the  same  philosophic  tradition,  and  the  liberal  theology  of 
the  last  generation  has  made  its  positions  familiar  to  English 
and  American  students. 

For  some  time  past,  however,  the  tide  of  absolute  idealism  has 
been  ebbing.  Its  claim  to  give  a  satisfying  world  view  has  been 
rudely  challenged,  in  Germany  by  Ritschl  and  his  school, 
and  more  recently  in  this  country  by  our  own  pragmatists.  The 
unity  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  they  tell  us,  has  no  existence 
in  reality.  It  is  a  figment  of  the  mind,  a  pleasing  picture  painted 
by  men  of  artistic  temperament  to  blind  their  eyes  to  the  ugli- 
ness of  life  and  to  protect  their  sensitive  feelings  from  the  shock 
of  its  discords.  Life,  as  we  know  it,  is  not  order,  but,  in  part,  at 
least,  chaos;  not  harmony,  but  strife;  not  certainty,  but  chance; 
not  unity,  but  multiplicity.  For  the  all-embracing  reality  of 
the  older  idealism  we  are  offered  our  choice  between  dualism 
and  pluralism,  with  the  odds  in  favor  of  the  latter. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  challenge  has  been  a  salutary  one. 
It  has  been  a  good  thing  for  theology  to  be  recalled  from  its 
dreamland  to  the  actual  facts  of  life.  It  is  well  that  we  should 
be  reminded  that  for  our  present  experience,  at  least,  unity  is  an 
ideal  and  not  an  attainment;  that  the  world  in  which  we  live  is 
full  of  tragic  possibilities  of  failure  and  shipwreck;  that  evil  is 
a  real  and  present  fact;  that  the  possession  of  freedom  involves  the 


THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR  UNITY  247 

power  of  wrong  choice,  and  that  the  wages  of  sin  is  death.  The 
practical  test  to  which  the  pragmatists  would  subject  all  thought 
is  one  to  be  welcomed  by  the  disciples  of  him  who  said:  "If  any 
man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine."  But  where 
the  ideal  of  unity  itself  is  challenged,  and  we  are  bidden  to  face 
with  an  even  mind  the  possibility  of  a  universe  permanently  di- 
vided against  itself,  it  is  a  question  whether  the  reaction  has  not 
gone  too  far.  Unity  may  be  simply  an  ideal,  and  yet  an  ideal 
which  is  necessary  for  the  highest  practical  efficiency.  At  all 
events,  in  view  of  the  place  which  it  has  held  in  the  past,  this  is 
a  possibility  not  lightly  to  be  dismissed. 

The  present  paper  is  offered  as  a  contribution  to  this  discus- 
sion. I  propose  to  consider  the  religious  interest  in  unity,  as  it  is 
illustrated  by  that  one  of  the  great  religions  with  which  we  stand 
in  closest  relations — I  mean  the  Christian.  We  shall  inquire 
what  are  the  motives  which  lead  the  Christian  to  desire  a  uni- 
fied world  view;  and  shall  consider  in  some  detail  what  this  desire 
involves,  how  far  it  extends,  and  what  is  its  relation  to  other 
motives  which  lead  men  to  seek  unity  in  other  fields. 

But  here  a  preliminary  definition  is  necesssary.  Christianity 
is  a  very  comprehensive  and  indefinite  term.  It  has  been  asso- 
ciated at  different  periods  of  history  with  widely  different  con- 
ceptions of  religion,  and  almost  every  one  of  the  possible  philo- 
sophical positions  has  been  defended  by  men  who  have  called 
themselves  Christian.  If  our  discussion  is  to  be  fruitful,  w^e  must 
begin  by  explaining  in  what  sense  we  ourselves  use  the  word. 

By  Christianity,  for  the  purpose  of  the  present  inquiry,  we  shall 
understand  not  merely  the  religion  which  Jesus  founded,  but 
that  for  which  he  is  normative.  Many  forms  of  historic  Chris- 
tianity have  departed  so  widely  from  the  ideals  of  the  Master 
that  they  can  in  no  sense  be  regarded  as  the  legitimate  develop- 
ment of  his  teaching.  With  these  we  are  not  concerned  here. 
The  Christianity  with  which  we  have  alone  to  do  is  the  religion 
which  makes  Jesus  central  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name;  or  in  other 
words,  which  is  the  expression  of  the  principles  and  convictions 
by  which  he  lived  and  for  which  he  died.* 

*  This  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  Christianity  must  be  simply  the  re- 
production of  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  but  that  it  must  be  consistent  with  them. 
It  must  not  contradict  them. 


248  THE    CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY 

Among  these  are  the  following: 

(1)  The  conviction  that  God  is  our  Father,  and  that  we  are 
his  children  and  so  brothers  of  one  another. 

(2)  That  Jesus  has  given  us  in  his  own  person  the  supreme 
revelation,  both  of  the  character  of  God  and  of  the  ideal  for  man. 

(3)  That  the  Kingdom  of  God,  or  the  society  of  men  living 
in  conscious  sonship  and  brotherhood,  is  at  once  the  final  pur- 
pose of  God  and  the  supreme  end  for  man,  so  that  the  indi- 
vidual fulfils  his  own  true  end  only  as  he  makes  this  wider  social 
purpose  his  own. 

(4)  That  salvation  is  not  a  matter  of  reward  or  of  merit,  but 
of  one's  attitude  toward  God  and  indirectly  toward  man,  that 
it  begins  with  trust,  has  its  characteristic  mark  in  freedom,  and 
its  fruit  and  test  in  brotherly  love  and  service. 

(5)  That  this  state  of  trust,  freedom  and  love,  is  possible  here 
and  now,  and  that  it  was  Jesus'  life  purpose  not  only  to  show  men 
its  nature,  but  to  make  them  sharers  in  its  experience;  yet  that 
none  the  less  the  complete  realization  of  the  Christian  ideal 
belongs  to  the  future,  since  it  involves  a  social  transformation 
not  yet  completely  attained. 

(6)  That  the  certainty  of  this  ultimate  realization  is  guaranteed 
by  faith  in  the  fatherly  purpose  of  God,  who  is  not  only  the  saviour 
of  individuals,  but  the  ruler  of  the  world,  and  hence  able  to  bring 
his  purpose  to  a  successful  issue  in  the  world. 

No  doubt  historic  Christianity  contains  much  more  than  this, 
and  many  Christians  to-day  would  feel  that  such  a  statement 
omitted  much  that  they  regarded  as  important  in  their  faith;  but 
so  much  as  this,  at  least,  most  men  would  admit,  belongs  to 
Christianity.  To  be  a  Christian  means  to  believe  in  the  Father- 
hood of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  the  leadership  of  Jesus, 
the  ethical  and  spiritual  nature  of  salvation,  and  the  Kingdom 
of  God  as  the  final  goal  and  the  certain  outcome  of  history. 

Taking  this,  then,  as  a  working  definition  of  Christianity, 
sufficiently  accurate  for  our  present  purpose,  we  proceed  to  raise 
the  question  as  to  what  follows  for  the  Christian  view  of  the  world. 
What  is  the  Christian  attitude  to  this  wide-spread  human  demand 
for  unity?  How  far  does  Christianity  make  it  its  own?  How 
far  is  it  indifferent  thereto?  AMiat  special  contribution  has  it 
to  make  to  the  problem  of  unity,  and  what  is  its  relation  to  the 


THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY  249 

historic  solutions  which  have  been  proposed  by  others?  In 
other  words,  we  have  to  do  with  the  Christian  demand  for  unity, 
its  nature  and  its  impHcations. 

I  say,  its  nature  and  its  impHcations.  The  distinction  is  an 
important  one.  We  may  agree  that  the  Ciiristian  interest  de- 
mands unity,  without  accepting  all  the  conclusions  which  have 
been  drawn  from  this  premise.  Indeed,  we  shall  find  that  a  clear 
definition  of  the  nature  of  the  Christian  demand  is  the  first  con- 
dition of  a  right  determination  of  the  extent  and  limits  of  the  re- 
sulting conclusions. 

I  remark,  then,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  Christian  demand  for 
unity  is  a  practical  demand.  By  a  practical  demand,  I  mean  a 
demand  growing  out  of  the  active  side  of  man's  nature  as  dis- 
tinct from  that  which  is  merely  theoretical  or  speculative.  The 
motive  which  leads  the  Christian  to  seek  unity  in  the  philosophic 
sense  of  the  term  is  not  the  same  which  leads  the  philosopher 
or  the  scientific  man  to  seek  it,  though  we  shall  see  later  that  there 
is  a  point  at  which  the  Christian  interest  touches  the  philosophic 
and  the  scientific  interests,  and  can  make  them  its  own.  It  is  a 
practical  problem  which  leads  the  Christian  to  raise  the  ulti- 
mate theoretical  questions,  namely,  the  problem  how  to  realize 
the  ideal  of  Jesus  in  his  own  life,  and  to  fulfil  the  purpose  of 
Jesus  in  society  at  large.  No  sooner  does  he  make  the  attempt 
to  translate  his  faith  into  practice,  than  he  is  brought  face  to  face 
with  obstacles,  which  seem  insuperable,  and  it  is  in  the  desire 
to  overcome  these  obstacles  that  the  specifically  Christian  de- 
mand for  a  consistent  and  harmonious  Weltanschauung  first 
makes  itself  felt. 

The  experience  is  so  familiar  a  one  that  it  needs  no  lengthy 
description.  We  live,  every  one  of  us,  in  a  physical  and  a  social 
environment,  in  which  we  touch  and  are  touched  by  forces  and 
influences  which  we  must  be  able  to  control,  if  we  are  to  realize 
our  ideal,  either  for  ourselves,  or  for  others.  These  forces  and 
influences  are  the  same  with  which  science  and  philosophy  deal, 
and,  whether  we  will  or  no,  we  are  obliged  to  take  account  of 
them.  Ritschl  has  well  said  that  in  religion  we  have  to  do  not 
simply  with  God  and  the  soul,  but  with  God,  the  soul  and  the 
world.  Even  in  those  ascetic  and  other-worldly  forms  of  re- 
ligion, like  Buddhism  or  thorough-going  mysticism,  which  realize 


250  THE    CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY 

their  ideal  through  the  negation  of  the  world,  it  is  still  the  world 
to  be  denied  which  determines  the  nature  of  the  problem  and  the 
character  of  its  solution.  But,  in  Christianity,  which  is  not 
primarily  an  other-worldly  or  a  mystic,  but  a  social  and  ethical 
religion,  this  contact  is  much  more  intimate.  The  Christian  is 
conscious  of  being  a  fellow-laborer  with  Christ  in  his  great  work 
of  establishing  his  Kingdom  in  the  world,  and,  that  he  may 
be  able  to  do  this,  he  must  be  sure  that  the  power  upon  which  he 
relies  for  help  in  his  own  spiritual  life  is  so  far,  at  least,  master  of 
the  world  and  of  other  men  that  no  hindrance  can  come  from  them 
which  will  prevent  the  realization  of  his  purpose.  How  much 
this  involves  in  detail  we  shall  consider  presently.  Here  it  is 
sufficient  for  us  to  note  the  fact  of  the  demand  and  its  nature. 

I  note,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  Christian  demand  is  an 
ethical  demand;  that  is,  one  which  is  determined  by  the  char- 
acter of  the  divine  purpose  to  establish  the  Kingdom.  The  unity 
which  the  Christian  seeks  in  his  world  is  such  a  unity  as  this  in- 
volves. As  such,  the  Christian  view  of  the  world  is  contrasted 
with  all  forms  of  monism  which  seek  unity  in  the  region  of  the 
abstract  and  the  sub-ethical,  or,  in  other  words,  with  panthe- 
istic monism,  whether  in  its  religious  or  in  its  philosophical 
form.  It  is  Ritschl's  great  service  that  he  has  brought  out  this 
contrast  so  clearly.  Indeed,  so  vehement  have  been  his  attacks 
upon  philosophy,  falsely  so-called,  that  the  speculative  interest 
in  his  own  theology  has  been  unduly  obscured.  It  is  a  great  mis- 
take to  classify  Ritschl,  as  is  prevailingly  the  custom,  with  the 
philosophical  dualists.  Ritschl  feels  the  impulse  to  unity  as 
strongly  as  any  monist,  only  it  is  in  the  specifically  Christian 
way,  a  way  which  finds  its  gratification  in  an  ethical  rather 
than  in  a  physical  or  a  pantheistic  monism.  Ethical  monism, 
by  the  very  necessity  of  the  case,  makes  place  for  a  relative 
dualism  or  better  pluralism,  a  pluralism  in  which  many  indi- 
viduals, capable  of  divided  interests  and  purposes,  are  bound 
together  by  their  common  relation  to  one  controlling  ethical 
personality  and  their  common  acceptance  of  his  purposes.  It 
is  such  a  unity  as  this  that  Christianity  demands. 

And  this  leads  me  to  remark,  in  the  third  place,  that  the  Chris- 
tian demand  for  unity  is  a  religious  demand,  that  is,  it  is  a  demand 
which  springs  out  of  the  nature  of  the  Christian  conception  of 


THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY  251 

God.  The  Father  whom  Jesus  trusted  was  not  simply  a  God 
of  righteous  and  loving  purpose,  but  one  who  was  able  to  realize 
that  purpose.  The  Christian  God  is  not  indeed  a  God  of  mere 
power,  but  none  the  less  he  is  a  God  of  power.  If  not  necessarily 
strictly  omnipotent,  in  the  abstract  sense  of  the  word,  he  is  yet 
strong  enough  to  overcome  all  obstacles  which  may  impede  the 
accomplishment  of  his  purpose.  Certainly  faith  in  such  a  God 
was  an  essential  element  in  the  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus, 
and  the  motive  which  held  him  true  when  the  supreme  test  of 
his  life  came.  If,  then,  by  essential  Christianity  be  meant  the 
principles  and  convictions  which  were  controlling  in  Jesus'  own 
life,  we  must  admit,  among  such  necessary  principles,  faith  in  a 
God  of  power  adequate  to  complete  ethical  control. 

If  it  be  asked  whether  a  man  may  not  be  a  Christian  who  has 
lost  this  faith,  one  who  believes  in  a  good  but  limited,  or  even 
impotent,  God,  one  who  is  content  to  follow  the  right  even  if  it 
leads  to  ultimate  defeat  and  destruction,  not  only  for  himself, 
but  for  society  and  the  world  at  large,  the  answer  is  that  certainly 
such  a  man  is  more  Christian  than  one  who  believes  in  a  God  of 
power  without  right.  He  is  one  who  is  on  the  way  to  Christian 
faith,  one  with  whom  Christians  can  sympathize  and  work,  but 
not  a  typical  and  normal  Christian  in  the  sense  at  present  under 
discussion,  a  Christian,  that  is  to  say,  who  reproduces  in  his  own 
experience  those  elements  which  were  controlling  in  the  religious 
experience  of  Jesus.  Christianity,  so  defined,  involves  faith, 
not  simply  that  God  is  Chrisdike,  but  that  the  Christlike  God 
is  supreme.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  the  element  of  supremacy 
is  always  present  in  the  idea  of  God,  and  it  is  a  fair  question 
how  long  religious  faith  could  endure,  if  the  believer's  confi- 
dence in  the  power  of  his  God  to  control  were  to  be  under- 
mined. 

So  much  for  the  nature  of  the  Christian  demand  for  unity.  But 
the  recognition  of  such  a  demand  leaves  the  question  of  its  ex- 
tent and  limits  still  undetermined.  Here  there  is  more  room  for 
difi'erence  of  opinion,  and  to  this  second  and  more  difficult  phase 
of  our  question  we  now  turn. 

There  are  two  spheres  in  which  the  Christian  demand  for  unity 
needs  to  be  tested,  the  realm  of  the  sub-personal  and  non-moral, 
which  we  call  the  physical  universe,  or  nature;  and  the  sphere  of 


252  THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY 

spiritual  relationships  where  personality  has  its  home.  We  shall 
consider  each  in  turn. 

With  reference  to  the  physical  universe,  it  is  sufficient  to  say 
that  the  Christian  demand  for  unity  extends  so  far,  and  so  far 
only,  as  is  necessary  to  secure  the  supremacy  of  the  Christian 
principle  in  the  second  or  spiritual  sphere.  The  question  under 
debate  is  as  to  how  much  this  involves.  Does  it  involve  the  recog- 
nition of  a  common  principle  in  both  realms?  Must  the  Chris- 
tian God  be  also  the  complete  master  of  nature,  either  in  the  sense 
of  having  created  and  now  preserving  and  ordering  it,  as  in  the 
older  realistic  philosophy,  or  as  its  immanent  ground,  as  in  mod- 
ern monism?  This  is  in  part  a  speculative  question,  to  be  an- 
swered according  to  our  general  view  of  the  relation  of  the  two 
realms  and  the  character  and  extent  of  their  connection,  as  mani- 
fest in  experience.  We  are  here  concerned  with  the  general 
principles  which  determine  the  Christian  attitude  to  all  such  ques- 
tions. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  control  of  God  over  nature  is  re- 
quired by  the  Christian  principle,  so  far  as  the  functions  of  the 
human  spirit  may  be  shown  to  be  dependent  upon  physical 
causes.  If  God  is  Lord  of  the  spirit,  and  the  Christian  life  is 
the  life  of  free  sons  with  their  Father,  then,  so  far  as  the  spirit 
is  influenced  or  affected  by  physical  conditions,  God  as  the 
supreme  Spirit  must  be  able  to  control  these. 

In  the  second  place,  the  control  of  God  over  nature  is  required 
by  the  Christian  principle,  so  far  as  the  realization  of  the  ideal 
human  society  may  be  shown  to  be  dependent  upon  physical 
(e.  g.,  sanitary,  economic,  etc.)  conditions.  So  far  as  environ- 
ment shall  be  found  to  influence  and  determine  the  nature  of 
the  Christian  society,  so  far  God  must  be  shown  to  be  master 
of  the  environment.  This  connection  is  actually  made  in  the 
Christian  estimate  of  pain.  Pain  is  the  form  in  which  the  eftVcts 
of  the  physical  environment  upon  the  spirit  of  man  make  them- 
selves felt  most  adversely.  Christianity  makes  room  for  pain 
in  its  view  of  God's  Providence.  The  Christian  God  may  not, 
indeed,  send  trouble  in  the  sense  of  arbitrary  suffering  for  its 
own  sake,  but  he  is  one  who  uses  and  controls  trouble.  Through 
suffering — physical  and  moral — he  is  continually  teaching 
spiritual  lessons  of  the  highest  importance,  and  so  making  it  the 


THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY  253 

instrument  of  the  advancement  of  his  Kingdom.  As  to  the  exact 
way  in  which  we  are  to  think  of  God  as  exercising  this  control, 
there  is  room  for  difference  of  opinion.  The  older  theologians 
conceived  of  God  as  exercising  his  sovereignty  in  a  more  or  less 
external  way,  and  relied  for  their  proof  of  his  presence  in  nature 
upon  special  acts  of  creation,  or  of  providence,  or  of  miracle. 
We  to-day  emphasize  the  orderliness  and  consistency  of  God's 
dealings,  and  interpret  the  laws  which  science  formulates  as 
the  normal  method  of  God's  self-manifestation.  The  change  is 
due  partly  to  a  better  philosophy  and  partly  to  an  enlarged  ex- 
perience. The  result  of  both  changes  has  been  a  new  conception 
of  the  supernatural,  or  in  other  words,  of  the  way  we  conceive 
spirit  as  manifesting  itself  through  nature.  Instead  of  identify- 
ing the  supernatural  with  the  exceptional,  we  interpret  it  as  the 
worthful  and  meaningful,  and  gain  our  assurance  of  God's 
presence  in  nature  from  the  purposes  it  serves,  rather  than  from 
the  power  w-hich  it  manifests.  This  change  is  of  the  highest 
importance  philosophically,  yet  of  itself  it  does  not  touch  the 
essence  of  Christian  faith.  That  which  is  essential  for  Chris- 
tianity is  that  the  Christ-like  God  shall  control,  and  this  is  a  con- 
viction which  men  have  held  and  do  hold,  whose  views  of  the 
supernatural  are  very  crude  and  imperfect.  To  us  to-day, 
trained  in  modern  science  and  philosophy,  the  conception  of 
God's  immanence  is  probably  more  natural  and  helpful  than  the 
older  conception  of  his  transcendence.  But  here  again,  that 
which  is  essential  is  that  the  Christian  God  shall  control,  not  the 
way  in  which  we  conceive  his  control  to  be  exercised.  It  is  not 
even  necessary  from  the  Christian  point  of  view  to  believe  that 
God  is  the  author  of  nature,  provided  we  are  sure  that,  now  that 
nature  is  here,  God  is  in  complete  control.  It  may  indeed  be 
difficult  for  most  of  us  to  see  how  it  is  possible  to  affirm  complete 
control  without  at  the  same  time  believing  in  creation,  but  if 
any  one  finds  this  position  philosophically  satisfactory,  he  is  at 
liberty  to  hold  it,  without  sacrificing  anything  which  is  vital  to 
Christian  faith. 

So  far  we  have  spoken  of  the  indirect  interest  of  the  Christian 
in  the  assurance  of  God's  control  over  nature.  There  is,  how- 
ever, one  point  at  which  the  Christian  demand  for  unity  passes 
beyond  this  indirect  interest  and  leads  directly  to  the  affirma- 


254  THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY 

tion  of  God's  presence  in  nature.  This  is  in  connection  with  the 
phenomena  which  we  call  beautiful.  In  itself,  of  course,  the 
discovery  of  beauty  in  nature  is  not  a  specifically  Christian  ex- 
perience, but  the  interpretation  of  beauty,  when  discovered,  as 
the  handiwork  of  God,  is  the  natural  consequence  of  the  Chris- 
tian principle.  It  is  a  part,  and  a  necessary  part,  of  that  process, 
by  which  all  the  phases  of  human  experience  are  brought  into 
harmony  with  the  Christian  principle  and  interpreted  in  the  light 
of  the  divine  purpose.  Nothing  that  is  good  and  true  can  be 
alien  to  the  God  whom  Jesus  reveals.  But  if  this  be  true,  beauty 
must  have  its  place  as  a  revelation  of  the  divine  nature.  We 
have  the  highest  authority  for  this  attitude.  Jesus  himself  sets 
us  the  example  in  those  wonderful  passages  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  in  which  he  carries  back  the  painting  of  the  lilies 
to  his  Father's  love  and  care.  In  this  religious  interpretation  of 
nature  he  shows  his  kinship  with  the  poets  and  the  artists  of 
every  age,  who  have  made  beauty  their  god.  But  he  goes  be- 
yond them  in  emphasizing  the  moral  significance  of  beauty  as 
simply  one  aspect  of  that  supreme  harmony  which  dominates 
all  life,  and  which  is  some  day  to  find  complete  expression  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

But  with  this  reference  to  the  artists  and  the  poets  we  have  al- 
ready passed  from  the  first  stage  of  our  inquiry  to  the  second, 
from  the  realm  of  nature  to  that  of  personality.  WTiat,  we  have 
still  to  ask,  does  the  Christian  demand  for  unity  involve  here? 
Here  again  our  question  divides  itself.  In  considering  the  bear- 
ing of  the  Christian  demand  for  unity  upon  the  personal  world, 
we  have  to  distinguish  its  relation  to  those  permanent  types  of 
spiritual  experience  which,  while  not  specifically  Christian,  have 
appealed  to  a  large  multitude  of  men  as  inherently  worthful, 
and  secondly,  to  those  phases  of  human  experience  which  retard 
or  oppose  the  realization  of  the  Christian  ideal. 

And  first  of  the  bearing  of  the  Christian  demand  for  unity 
upon  other  worthful  types  of  experience.  Of  these  the  most 
important  are  the  artistic,  the  scientific  and  the  ethical.  With 
reference  to  all  three,  it  is  clear  that  the  Christian  principle  re- 
quires an  attitude  not  merely  of  tolerance,  but  of  sympathetic 
appreciation  and  of  appropriation  of  the  good  which  they  con- 
tain. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  DEMAND   FOR  UNITY  255 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  true  attitude  of  the  Christian 
to  the  beauty  of  nature.  The  same  principle  applies  with  even 
greater  force  in  the  case  of  art,  which  is  man's  attempt  to  beautify 
human  life.  There  are  two  possible  attitudes  which  the  Chris- 
tian may  take  toward  art.  He  may  be  indifferent  to  it,  as  some- 
thing which,  while  in  itself  legitimate  and  innocent,  and  useful 
for  those  who  like  it,  is  of  no  importance  to  the  Christian  as  such; 
or  he  may  value  it  as  one  of  the  forms  in  which  the  many-sided 
life  of  the  Kingdom  manifests  itself.  The  latter  is  not  only 
preferable  on  practical  grounds;  it  is  the  only  position  theoreti- 
cally compatible  with  the  Christian  principle  itself.  How  can  a 
Christian,  who  accepts  Jesus'  law  of  brotherhood,  be  indifferent 
to  art?  That  law  requires  that  so  far  as  strength  and  time  ad- 
mit, the  interests  and  concerns  of  each  of  the  members  of  the 
Kingdom  shall  be  the  interest  and  the  concern  of  all.  It  is  the 
Christian's  duty,  as  it  is  his  highest  privilege,  to  understand  and 
sympathize  with  everything  by  which  his  brother's  life  is  enlarged 
and  enriched.  How,  then,  can  he  be  indifferent  to  the  joy  of 
the  artist  in  creation  or  of  the  art  lover  in  appreciation?  But 
the  Christian  principle  reaches  farther  still.  We  have  some- 
thing to  give  as  well  as  to  receive,  something  without  which  art 
cannot  realize  its  highest  mission,  namely,  the  vision  of  that  su- 
preme harmony  which  unifies  all  life,  and  helps  us  to  discover 
in  regions  of  experience,  which,  seen  without  the  illumination 
of  the  Christian  principle,  would  seem  partial,  distorted,  and 
therefore  ugly,  the  beauty  of  holiness  and  the  glory  of  sacrifice. 

W^hat  is  true  of  the  artistic,  is  true  also  of  the  intellectual 
life.  We  have  contrasted  the  scientific  and  the  philosophical 
interest  with  the  Christian,  and  such  contrast  is  necessary.  None 
the  less  it  is  true  that  the  Christian  attitude  toward  philosophy 
and  science  cannot  be  one  of  indifference.  Here  again  the 
principle  of  sympathy  applies,  and  here,  too,  the  principle  of 
ministry  receives  a  new  illustration.  As  Christians  we  are  inter- 
ested in  philosophy  and  in  science,  because  they  are  forms  of 
the  life  of  the  Kingdom,  and  permanent  interests  of  our  brothers, 
in  which  we  cannot  but  sympathize;  but  this  is  not  all.  We 
believe  we  have  something  to  impart  which  philosophy  and  science 
need.  We  have  something  to  give  philosophy.  The  God  in 
whom  we  believe  is  for  us  the  ultimate  reality; — if  not  the  phil- 


256  THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY 

osophic  Absolute  in  the  technical  sense,  at  least  the  Being  through 
whom  unity  is  attained  in  the  sphere  of  practice.  Any  attempt, 
therefore,  on  the  part  of  philosophy,  to  solve  the  problem  of  unity, 
which  takes  no  account  of  the  contribution  of  Christianity,  must 
reach  an  inadequate  result.  We  have  something,  too,  for  science. 
In  the  Christian  experience  we  find  the  clearest  illustration  of 
spiritual  laws  of  the  highest  practical  importance.  Until  this 
experience  is  taken  into  account,  the  evidence  as  to  man's  nature 
is  not  all  in,  and  we  cannot  therefore  be  indifferent  to  the  question 
as  to  whether  or  not  those  who  are  studying  the  problems  of 
the  spirit  make  use  of  the  clue  which  we  believe  we  possess. 

Even  closer  is  the  connection  between  Christianity  and  the 
ethical  life.  This  connection  has  been  so  much  emphasized  in 
recent  years  by  Ritschl  and  his  school,  that  it  is  not  necessary  to 
linger  over  it  here.  That  the  Christian  is  vitally  interested  in 
the  moral  life  wherever  it  is  found;  that  he  sees  in  it  an  evidence 
of  the  working  of  his  Father's  spirit,  and  a  preparation  for 
his  kingdom;  that  every  one  who  loves  and  serves  his  brother 
is  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Jesus,  whether  he  is  conscious 
of  the  fact  or  not;  and  conversely,  that  Christianity  has  a  con- 
tribution to  make  to  these  unconscious  followers,  by  providing 
them  with  a  religious  basis  for  their  instinctive  faith  in  the  worth 
of  the  individual,  w^th  a  comprehensive  programme  for  social 
effort,  and  with  a  satisfying  comradeship:  all  these  are  facts  toa 
patent  to  be  denied.  The  danger  is  rather  that  in  our  emphasis 
on  the  ethical  element  in  Christianity,  we  shall  under-estimate 
the  value  of  other  types  of  human  experience  which  are  often 
contrasted  with  it. 

Such  an  example  of  under-estimate  may  be  found,  I  believe, 
in  the  attitude  of  some  recent  writers  to  the  type  of  religion 
known  as  mysticism.  The  characteristic  feature  of  the  mystic 
experience  is  its  immediacy.  The  soul  feels  itself  lifted  into  the 
immediate  presence  of  God,  and  in  the  emotional  exaltation  pro- 
duced by  this  contact,  all  else  is  forgotten.  The  world  of  com- 
mon experience,  of  daily  duty,  even  of  human  love  and  sympathy, 
drops  below  the  level  of  consciousness,  and  nothing  remains 
but  the  glow  of  an  indescribable  joy.  Now,  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  mysticism  has  often  assumed  forms  that  are  not  merely  un- 
christian   but    anti-christian.     It    has  been  individualistic,   in- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  DEMAND   FOR  UNITY  257 

trospective,  unethical,  selfish.  Yet  none  the  less  is  it  true,  if 
history  and  psychology  are  trustworthy  guides,  that  in  the  mystic 
experience  we  have  to  do  with  a  tendency  in  human  nature  too 
deep-seated  to  be  dismissed  with  a  simple  denunciation.  Mere 
negation  does  not  meet  the  case.  With  the  mystic,  too,  it  is  the 
Christian's  duty  to  enter  into  sympathetic  fellowship,  partly 
that  he  may  understand  that  which  is  precious  and  vital  in  his 
experience,  and,  so  far  as  he  can  consistently  do  so,  may  make  it 
his  own;  partly  that  he  may  correct  its  inadequacy  and  narrow- 
ness by  supplying  that  which  it  lacks.  What  mysticism  lacks 
is  a  clear  vision  of  the  kind  of  God  with  Avhom  we  should  seek 
communion  in  religion.  What  mysticism  has,  and  present-day 
Christianity  often  lacks,  is  the  sense  of  joy  in  communion.  We 
need  to  remember  that  the  consciousness  of  God's  presence  in 
which  the  mystic  finds  his  satisfaction  is  not  to  be  found  only, 
or  even  chiefly,  in  the  self-centred,  introspective  life.  It  is  through 
the  service  of  man  that  we  enter  most  directly  into  the  presence 
of  God  and  become  most  aware  of  his  fellowship.  Yet  none  the 
less  that  consciousness  is  something  supremely  to  be  desired  for 
its  own  sake.  There  is  a  real  danger  that  in  our  opposition  to 
what  seems  an  unethical  individualism,  we  may  lose  that  which 
has  always  been  regarded  as  the  supreme  blessing  of  religion, 
namely,  the  sense  of  personal  communion  with  the  personal  God. 
It  is  well  to  emphasize  the  purpose  of  God  as  the  central  fact 
of  the  Christian  revelation;  but  God's  purpose  is  not  a  substi- 
tute for  his  presence,  but  the  means  through  which  he  manifests 
it  to  the  intelligence  and  the  will.  Religion  is  more  than  ethics. 
Faith  in  God  adds  something  to  love  for  man,  just  as  in  the 
life  of  the  home  the  consciousness  of  the  father's  love  and  care 
for  each  individual  child  gives  added  meaning  to  the  homely 
acts  of  service  through  which  alone  the  ideal  of  the  home  can  be 
realized. 

With  reference  to  the  other  class  of  phenomena,  those  which  op- 
pose the  realization  of  the  Christian  purpose,  it  is  possible  to  be 
more  brief.  Not  because  the  problem  is  unimportant  or  its  so- 
lution easy,  but  because  it  is  that  phase  of  the  question  which  has 
received  most  attention  in  the  past,  and  in  which  the  issues  at 
stake  are  therefore  most  familiar.  When  we  approach  the  facts 
of  moral  evil  we  face  in  its  clearest  form  that  relative  dualism. 


258  THE   CHRISTIAN  DEMAND   FOR  UNITY 

or  pluralism,  which  is  involved  in  all  ethical  life  and  which,  con- 
sidered in  itself,  is  not  the  negation,  but  the  condition  of  unity. 
The  difficulty  arises  when  the  discord  which  sin  at  present  causes 
is  regarded  as  ultimate,  and  evil  exalted  to  a  power  permanently 
independent  of  the  divine  control.  This  is  a  position  which  no 
Christian  theologian  has  been  willing  to  take,  since  it  would  in- 
volve the  destruction  of  that  practical  supremacy,  which  is  the 
fundamental  postulate  of  Christian  faith.  Somehow  or  other  we 
must  believe  that,  while  sin  is  sin  and  therefore  hateful  and  harm- 
ful, it  is  here  as  part  of  God's  plan  and  subject  to  his  control. 

The  historical  positions  on  the  subject  are  familiar,  and  it  is 
not  necessary  to  linger  over  them  here.  Three  possibilities  seem 
open.  We  may  explain  sin  with  historic  Calvinism  as  the  neces- 
sary background  for  the  display  of  the  divine  holiness.  Or  we 
may  account  for  it,  with  Arminianism,  as  due  a  self-limitation  of 
God,  in  the  creation  of  free  beings.  Or  finally,  with  Universal- 
ism,  we  may  regard  sin  as  a  temporary  incident  in  a  process  of 
divine  training,  whose  end  will  be  the  salvation  of  all. 

Of  the  three  the  first,  at  least  in  its  older  form,  seems  incon- 
sistent with  the  Christian  principle.  According  to  this  view  God 
could  have  prevented  the  entrance  of  sin  into  the  world,  and, 
now  that  it  is  here,  if  he  so  decide,  he  can  banish  it  completely 
through  the  conversion  of  all  sinners,  but  he  refrains  from  doing 
this  because  a  double  outcome  of  the  moral  life  is  necessary  for 
the  full  display  of  his  own  perfections.  Justice  has  its  rights  as 
well  as  mercy,  and  justice  requires  the  final  condemnation  of 
some  sinners,  as  mercy  requires  the  salvation  of  some.  This 
gives  us  a  unity,  indeed,  but  not  the  kind  of  unity  which  Chris- 
tian faith  demands.  The  God  whom  Jesus  reveals  desires  the 
welfare  of  all  his  children,  and  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  he 
would  arbitrarily  exclude  any  from  participation  in  his  salva- 
tion. Justice  is  not  an  independent  principle  in  God,  which  re- 
quires vindication  for  its  own  sake,  but  rather  the  expression  of 
that  consistency  of  moral  purpose  which  finds  its  highest  satis- 
faction in  the  salvation  of  man. 

As  between  the  other  alternatives,  the  issue  is  not  so  simple. 
Strong  arguments  may  be  cited  on  either  side,  and  a  full  discus- 
sion of  the  subject  would  require  a  paper  in  itself  and  lead  us  into 
bypaths  into  which  it  is  not  possible  to  enter  here.     This  only 


THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR   UNITY  259 

need  be  said:  that  whatever  self-limitation  may  be  involved  in  the 
creation  of  freedom,  it  must  not  be  such  as  to  imperil  the  divine 
control.  We  dare  not  say  with  a  recent  theologian*  that  God 
has  failed  in  his  plan  for  men,  and  that  the  world  which  we  now 
see  is  only  his  second  choice,  a  world  with  which  he  puts  up  for 
want  of  a  better.  If  all  individuals  are  not  ultimately  saved,  it 
will  be  because  the  salvation  of  individuals  as  such  is  not  the 
primary  object  of  God's  plan — because,  in  other  words,  his  plan 
is  social  and  not  individual,  and  the  accomplishment  of  this  social 
purpose  involves  a  double  issue,  inexplicable,  if  not  indefensi- 
ble, from  a  purely  individual  point  of  view. 

The  difficulty  with  this  solution  lies  in  its  application.  Theoreti- 
cally there  is  much  to  be  said  in  its  favor.  It  corresponds  with 
what  we  know  of  God's  method  elsewhere.  It  seems  most  in 
accord  with  the  facts  of  experience,  which  point  to  a  double  issue 
of  the  moral  life,  while  at  the  same  time  it  relieves  us  of  the 
aroitrariness  of  the  older  theodicy,  where  the  problem  is  conceived 
in  terms  of  the  individual  alone.  But  when  we  attempt  to  apply 
it  to  the  practical  problems  of  every-day  Christianity,  it  breaks 
down.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  Jesus'  estimate  of  the  worth  of  each 
individual  soul  can  be  compatible  with  any  such  limitation  of  the 
range  of  God's  purpose.  The  logic  of  Christian  faith  is  as  un- 
willing to  set  limits  to  the  love  of  God  as  to  his  power. 

We  face  here  the  old  antinomy  to  which  all  consistent  thinking 
is  brought  at  last, — the  question  of  the  reconciliation  of  the  claims 
of  power  and  of  love.  What  Christianity  offers  us  here  is  not 
a  new  theoretical  solution — the  differences  of  opinion  which  have 
obtained  among  Christians  in  the  past  are  the  best  proof  of 
this — but  such  a  reinforcement  of  faith  in  the  love  and  power 
of  God  as  to  make  it  possible  to  hold  fast  to  the  possibility 
of  an  ultimate  reconciliation  in  spite  of  theoretical  difficulties. 
Whether,  as  individuals,  we  shall  adopt  one  or  the  other  of  the 
forms  of  the  historic  theodicy  will  depend,  as  in  the  case  of  our 
interpretation  of  the  relation  of  God  to  nature,  on  philosophic 
and  scientific  considerations  which  are  in  themselves  apart  from 
Christian  faith. 

*  O.  A.  Curtis :  The  Christian  Faith,  Personally  Given  in  a  System  of  Doc- 
trine, p.  4G5.  "  The  final  universe  will  be  nothing  but  a  second  best,  a  drop 
down  from  the  wish,  an  ideal  mangled." 


260  THE   CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   FOR  UNITY 

In  the  preceding  discussion  we  have  confined  ourselves  to 
the  question  of  unity  in  the  theoretical  sense;  but  it  is  obvious 
that  if  the  positions  which  have  been  taken  are  correct,  they  have 
an  important  bearing  upon  the  practical  questions  before  the 
Church.  It  follows  from  our  faith  in  the  supremacy  of  the  Christ- 
like God  that  we  must  recognize  his  presence  and  activity  in 
aspects  of  experience  and  among  groups  of  persons,  not  at  pres- 
ent included  within  organized  Christianity.  But  it  is  equally 
clear  that  this  separation  between  that  which  is  Christian  in 
name  and  in  spirit  is  unfortunate,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  our  aim 
to  bring  to  explicit  consciousness  and  to  effective  expression  the 
unity  which  we  believe  to  exist  in  fact.  This  is  the  practical 
problem  before  the  Church  to-day.  How  it  is  to  be  solved  in 
detail,  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  inquire,  but  we  may 
be  permitted,  in  conclusion,  to  sum  up  in  three  simple  princi- 
ples the  lines  along  which  such  a  solution  is  to  be  sought. 

(1)  It  is  our  duty,  as  Christians,  to  co-operate  with  any  man, 
no  matter  what  his  intellectual  views  may  be,  who  is  willing  to 
make  Jesus'  purpose  his  own  and  to  labor  for  its  accomplish- 
ment. 

(2)  It  is  our  duty  to  enter  sympathetically  into  the  under- 
standing of  all  those  forms  of  human  experience  which  differ 
from  our  own,  that  we  may  find  the  elements  of  truth  or  beauty 
which  they  contain,  and  may  appropriate  them. 

(3)  It  is  our  duty  so  to  organize  the  specific  forms  and  practices 
through  which  the  Christian  principles  find  expression  in  the 
world,  that  all  true  and  good  men  everywhere  shall  find  in  them 
something  which  answers  to  the  needs  of  their  own  particular 
type  of  spiritual  life.  Only  through  some  such  comprehensive 
programme  as  this  can  we  hope  to  secure  that  practical  unity 
which  will  be  the  one  conclusive  proof  of  the  theoretical  unity, 
to  the  discussion  of  which  this  paper  has  been  devoted. 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 
August  23,  1910. 


XX 

A  DEFINITION  OF  MYSTICISM 
By  Thomas  C.  Hall 

1.  It  would  be  a  gain  in  many  ways  if  the  word  mysticism  were 
used  more  exactly  and  more  narrowly  defined,  particularly  in 
works  dealing  with  the  development  of  religious  thought.  Schel- 
ling  says:  "Mysticism  can  only  be  called  that  spiritual  state 
(Geistesbeschaffenheit)  which  turns  with  contempt  (verschmiiht) 
from  all  scientific  basis,  or  even  discussion,  and  regards  all  truth 
as  springing  from  a  so-called  inner  and  not  at  all  universal,  but 
rather  individual  light;  from  immediate  revelation;  from  simple 
ecstatic  intuition  or  simple  feeling."  That  this  describes  ele- 
ments in  the  great  classic  mystics  cannot  be  denied.  But  prac- 
tically the  immediacy  of  nearly  all  religious  and  even  aesthetic 
feeling  defies  in  like  manner  scientific  analysis,  and  the  artist 
trusts  to  the  immediate  musical  revelation,  the  poet  to  the  rapt- 
ure of  poetic  ecstasy,  or  the  prophet  to  the  profound  sense  of 
divine  revelation  for  reaching  his  type  of  truth  in  thought  or 
conduct.  The  impatience  of  romanticism  with  the  formal  shal- 
low rationalism  of  the  preceding  age  was  justified  by  the  facts 
of  human  life.  But  the  message  of  romanticism  was  the  place 
this  immediacy  had  in  human  experience,  and  romanticism,  even 
on  its  religious  plane,  was  very  far  removed  from  classic  mysti- 
cism. So  that  although  immediacy  is  always  an  element  in 
mysticism  it  can  hardly  be  called  its  definite  essence  without 
introducing  mysticism  where  it  certainly  does  not  belong. 

2.  Nor  is  mysticism  simply  sentimental  piety.  Its  classic 
forms  cannot  be  enclosed  in  a  "phase  of  thought  or  perhaps 
feeling,"  as  Andrew  Seth  in  his  most  admirable  summary  of 
mysticism  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  seems  to  do.  In 
these  classic  forms  mysticism  is  both  a  goal,  and  a  method  for 

261 


262  A   DEFINITION  OF  MYSTICISM 

reaching  that  goal;  and  where  this  goal  is  clearly  apprehended 
then  the  various  types  of  mysticism  may  most  conveniently  be  clas- 
sified in  accordance  with  the  ways  they  take  to  attain  their  end. 
The  main  element  in  a  satisfactory  definition  of  mysticism  must 
therefore  be  found  in  its  fundamental  purpose.  And  once  this 
purpose  is  firmly  grasped  it  may  be  clearly  seen  how  a  narrow 
stream  of  classic  mysticism  flows  steadily  down  the  history  of 
thought,  now  widening  out  and  losing  itself  seemingly  in  a  gen- 
eral religious  demand  for  immediacy  of  vision,  and  personal  ex- 
perience, but  whenever  it  comes  to  self-consciousness  we  find 
it  stating  again  its  essential  purpose  with  insistent  and  decisive 
cleprness.  This  purpose  is  metaphysical  union  with  the  source 
of  all  Being,  the  identification  of  the  soul  with  the  very  sub- 
stance of  God. 

3.  The  word  metaphysical  is  here  used  to  sharply  divide  classic 
mysticism  from  simple  religious  longing  for  union  w4th  God. 
This  longing  is  a  common  element  in  all  religious  experience, 
and  differs  in  its  expression  according  to  the  worshipper's  idea 
of  God.  The  union  with  him  may  be  as  loyal  subject  to  a  chief 
or  king,  submission  to  him  as  Lawgiver  and  Creator,  or  loving 
obedience  as  to  a  Father,  etc.,  etc.  In  such  religious  surrender 
there  is  no  metaphysical  background  at  all,  and  to  make  mysti- 
cism identical  with  this  simple  longing  is  to  so  widen  the  defi- 
nition as  to  lose  all  that  is  really  characteristic  of  the  great  classic 
mystics,  and  would  result  in  making  us  all  "mystics."  The 
unio  mystica  is  indeed  often  thought  of  as  such  simple  submis- 
sion to  the  divine  will,  and  as  such  is  an  element  in  all  religious 
experience  worth  the  name;  but  classic  mysticism  has  never  been 
satisfied  with  any  such  simple  definition  of  the  religious  longing. 
Indeed  such  a  union  is  generally  only  the  means  mysticism  would 
take  for  reaching  its  end.  And  from  the  Neoplatonists  to  Jacob 
Bohme  that  end  is  always  the  actual  metaphysical  swallowing 
up  of  the  individual  life,  however  defined,  in  the  All.  Wherever 
mysticism  is  true  to  itself  and  clearly  conscious  of  its  message 
it  insists  upon  the  disappearance  of  the  phenomenal  individual, 
and  the  absorption  of  individuality  into  the  universal  source  of 
all  Being.  It  may  discuss  the  character  of  this  phenomenal 
separation,  and  may  call  it  evil  or  misfortune,  or  even  as  in  some 
of  its  utterances  (pseudo-Areopagite)  seem  to  treat  it  as  a  neces- 


A   DEFINITION  OF  MYSTICISM  263 

sary  step  in  the  revelation  of  the  consummate  All,  but  in  all  that 
really  deserves  the  name  of  mysticism  there  is  the  underlying 
conception  of  a  separation  between  the  phenomenal  seen,  and 
the  true  source  of  all  things,  and  a  sense  that  this  separation  must 
be  overcome,  and  the  goal  is  stated  as  a  reunion  with  the  unseen 
in  a  metaphysical  sense. 

4.  Whether  this  separation  is  thought  of  as  sin  or  misfortune 
or  weakness  or  temporary  but  necessary  imperfection,  the  effect  of 
mysticism  is  always  to  reduce  the  bodily  and  phenomenal  to 
an  evil  or  limitation,  and  the  religious  life  is  flight  from  this 
phenomenal  world  to  the  unseen  reality.  Therefore  what  is 
characteristic  of  the  religion  of  mysticism  is  hardly  what  Seth 
describes  as  "  on  the  practical  side.  .  .  .  The  possibility  of  direct 
intercourse  with  the  Being  of  Being."  For  this  is  a  postulate 
of  nearly  all  developed  religious  thought,  but  rather  the  possi- 
bility of  direct  union  in  a  metaphysical  sense  with  the  eternal 
Being,  and,  for  however  short  or  long  a  period,  a  complete  identi- 
fication of  the  soul  with  God.  For  this  reason,  as  Seth  him- 
self most  justly  remarks,  "as  this  goal  (interpenetration  of  the 
essence)  is  unattainable  while  reason  and  consciousness  of  self 
remain,  the  mystic  begins  to  consider  these  as  impediments  to 
be  cast  aside."  Hence  underlying  all  real  mysticism  is  a  meta- 
physical pantheism  as  the  ultimate  reality,  and  a  phenomenal 
dualism  as  a  present  evil  to  be  overcome.  This  is  variously 
expressed,  and  often  shaded  and  even  confused  in  the  expression, 
but  throughout  the  history  of  mysticism  with  greater  or  less 
clearness  this  underlying  philosophy  is  a  determining  element. 
It  would  be  well  if  in  all  histories  and  discussions  of  mysticism 
the  various  degrees  of  clearness  with  which  this  metaphysics  is 
expounded  were  made  more  decisive  in  the  inclusion  or  exclu- 
sion of  religious  writers  within  the  ranks  of  mystics.  Some  ordi- 
narily classed  with  the  mystics,  and  using  their  language,  are  so 
evidently  indifferent  or  hostile  to  this  main  interest  that  it  would 
be  well  to  exclude  them  from  the  ranks  of  the  classic  mystics 
altogether. 

5.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  mysticism  must  be  regarded  as  a 
providential  addition  to,  or  an  unfortunate  intrusion  upon,  primi- 
tive Christianity,  according  to  the  attitude  taken  toward  mysti- 
cism.   It  is  certainly  in  this  sense  a  foreign  element  in  Judaism, 


264  A   DEFINITION   OF   MYSTICISM 

because  Judaism  has  never  been  primarily  metaphysical  or  cos- 
mological  in  its  interest.  Even  when  taking  over  from  another 
culture  the  cosmological  stories  (Genesis,  etc.)  it  deals  with  them 
from  an  ethical  and  religious  point  of  view  and  with  obviously 
no  metaphysical  interest.  And  it  is  equally  remarkable  how 
distinctly  the  Hellenistic  speculations  taken  over  by  Philo  (omit- 
ting the  De  Vita  Contcmplativa)  remain  within  the  framework  of 
an  ethical  and  religious  interest.  Nor  does  this  metaphysical 
speculation  come  directly  from  Greece.  The  Greek  mind  was 
not  prone  to  mysticism,  not  for  the  reason,  it  seems  to  the  writer, 
given  so  often,  that  the  Greek  was  naturally  hopeful  and  took  a 
bright  and  natural  interest  in  life.  For  the  Greek  mind,  whether 
reflected  in  Homer  or  the  classic  drama,  does  not  seem  especially 
either  joyous  or  hopeful.  But  in  Greece  speculation  was  early 
linked  with  empiric  observation  and  physical  experiment,  and 
mysticism  has  almost  nothing  in  common  with  empiricism.  It  is 
from  the  Orient,  with  its  overweening  faith  that  one  may  by  pure 
intellectual  analysis  without  empiric  experiment  reach  the  highest 
truth,  that  mysticism  comes.  And  it  comes  weighted  with  the  de- 
spondency bred  of  a  political  helplessness  on  the  part  of  a  highly 
gifted  race.  Hellenism  had  ceased  in  a  large  measure  to  be  really 
empiric  and  had  become  oriental,  and  thus  within  Hellenism  mys- 
ticism found  a  field,  and  all  the  more  readily  because  the  de- 
spondency of  political  helplessness  had  fallen  upon  the  scattered 
Greek  race.  The  power,  moreover,  of  conceptual  abstraction  has 
been  so  all-important  a  factor  in  enabling  the  human  mind  to 
organize  and  master  the  manifold  in  its  infinite  variety,  that  phi- 
losophy has  always  been  prone  to  separate  the  machinery  from 
the  data,  and  to  regard  the  concept,  or  pure  mental  abstraction, 
as  having  a  higher  type  of  reality  than  that  possessed  by  the 
phenomenal  manifold  which  it  seeks  to  organize.  Plato  and 
Descartes  have  modern  followers  in  their  superstitious  Avorship 
of  the  conceptual  machinery  as  a  means  for  superseding  the  phe- 
nomenal experience  of  the  manifold.  But  mysticism  goes  even 
farther,  and  is  perhaps  more  logical  when  once  the  possibility 
of  such  transcendence  is  granted,  for  it  would  not  only  transcend 
the  phenomenal  manifold  but  even  the  conceptual  machinery 
by  which  the  manifold  is  organized  as  knowledge,  and  by  pure 
abstraction  gain  its  end  apart  from  the  phenomenal  altogether. 


A   DEFINITION  OF  MYSTICISM  265 

6.  This  transcending  of  the  phenomenal  world  must  present 
itself  primarily  to  the  mystic  as  a  psychological  process;  but  it 
also  carries  with  it  a  tendency  to  ascetic  treatment  of  the  body, 
as  in  itself  an  evil  and  a  hindrance  to  the  pure  vision.  Indeed 
the  writer  could  wish  again  that  the  term  asceticism  were  always 
carefully  and  narrowly  confined  to  this  method  of  thought  and 
feeling.  True  asceticism  is  never  content  with  a  simple  sub- 
jection of  the  body,  but  has  as  its  logical  culmination  the  ridding 
of  the  soul  of  its  bodily  limitation  altogether.  It  is  in  both  these 
forms  that  mysticism  has  found  its  way  into  historic  Christianity, 
and  we  have  speculative  mysticism  attempting  by  mental  ab- 
straction to  transcend  the  mental  process  or  by  emotional  ec- 
stasy to  transcend  emotion,  or  by  exercise  of  the  will  to  gain  an 
absolute  passivity,  and  an  ascetic  mysticism  seeking  by  pain  and 
deprivation  to  render  the  soul  independent  of  its  phenomenal 
environment.  The  clearness  with  which  the  goal  is  compre- 
hended varies  very  greatly.  IMuch  Roman  Catholic  piety  is 
only  mystical  in  its  use  of  a  language  and  ascetic  discipline 
which  it  has  rather  unintelligently  accepted  on  the  basis  of  au- 
thority. The  valuable  book  of  Baron  von  Hugel  on  Catherine 
of  Genoa  is  greatly  marred  by  confusions  along  the  line  of  defi- 
nition of  both  mysticism  and  asceticism;  and  by  the  mingling 
of  what  may  be  called  the  externals  of  mysticism  taken  over  me- 
chanically on  authority,  with  the  conscious  pursuit  of  the  mysti- 
cal goal.  An  extremely  skeptical  nature  often  takes  refuge  in 
an  abject  surrender  to  an  external  authority  (Cardinal  Newman), 
or  it  may  sometimes  fling  itself  upon  a  whole-hearted  rejection 
not  only  of  phenomenal  process  with  its  confessed  empiricism 
and  relativity,  but  of  all  phenomenal  reality,  and  seek  its  type 
of  reality  in  an  abstraction  from  all  bodily  and  mental  process. 
The  "world-weariness"  of  all  true  mysticism  is  due  to  this  de- 
spair of  the  tentative,  relative  and  hesitating  approach  to  truth 
that  is  alone  possible  to  the  relative  empiricist.  Great  outbursts 
of  human  energy  and  periods  of  supreme  confidence  and  hope 
inspired  by  great  but  incomplete  victory  over  the  phenomenal 
environment  are  apt  to  be  followed  by  periods  of  depression  and 
despondency  when  refuge  is  sought  either  in  surrender  to  au- 
thority of  an  external  kind  or  in  mysticism  with  its  real  rejec- 
tion of  all  rationality. 


266  A   DEFINITION   OF  MYSTICISM 

7.  If  the  goal  of  mysticism  is  once  clearly  apprehended  then 
the  various  ways  that  are  taken  to  reach  the  goal  furnish  us  with 
a  convenient  index  for  the  classification  of  the  mystics  properly 
so-called.  This  is  not  the  place  to  more  than  indicate  along 
what  lines  the  present  writer  has  sought  to  classify  for  his  own 
use,  he  thinks  with  some  success,  the  classic  mystics  of  history. 

(a)  There  are  those  whose  world-weariness  has  a  profoundly 
intellectual  caste.  The  overcoming  of  doubt  and  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  Eternal  is  sought  by  these  mystics  by  transcend- 
ing the  intellectual  process  in  speculation.  Thus  Neoplatonism 
sought  its  goal,  and  the  intellectual  mysticism  of  Dyonisius  the 
pseudo-Areopagite  is  of  the  same  type.  The  Gnostic  systems 
by  which  so  much  of  the  apparatus  and  the  phraseology  of  mys- 
ticism found  its  way  into  dogmatic  Christianity  was  intellectual 
and  speculative  in  its  primary  interest,  and  by  fantastic  cosmo- 
logical  constructions  sought  to  transcend  the  analytical  process  and 
find  metaphysical  unity  in  and  with  the  final  and  highest  Being. 

(b)  There  is  however  no  real  separation  possible  save  in  thought, 
between  emotional  and  intellectual  processes.  The  difference 
is  one  rather  of  emphasis,  hence  all  mysticism  has  sooner  or  later 
sought  in  ecstasy  to  transcend  alike  thought  and  feeling.  Among 
the  German  mystics  this  emotional  element  has  its  roots  in  the 
spiritual  awakening,  whose  origin  it  is  still  hard  to  trace,  but 
whose  fruits  were  the  cathari,  etc.,  and  finally  the  reforming 
orders.  The  mystic  elements  may  be  a  direct  reimportation 
from  the  East.  Such  seems  now  the  prevalent  view,  but  although 
the  mysticism  of  the  movement  is  most  certainly  oriental,  there 
is  no  need  to  suppose  much  new  importation,  for  all  that  is  found 
in  German  mysticism  may  be  traced  directly  to  older  sources 
within  historical  Christianity,  save  only  that  the  emphasis  is 
now  rather  upon  feeling  than  upon  thought.  Hence  dogmatic 
speculation  is  an  exceedingly  secondary  interest,  (c)  And  lastly, 
there  is  a  ritual  mysticism  in  which  the  way  to  abstraction  from 
the  phenomenal  is  by  means  of  rite,  exercise,  asceticism  and  sub- 
mission. So  by  acts  of  will  the  will  is  transcended  and  pas- 
sivity is  attained.  The  individual  is  swallowed  up  in  God,  and 
the  essence  of  individuality  is  found  not  so  much  in  thought 
or  emotion  as  in  will.  Here  again  it  is  by  the  emphasis  we  are 
enabled  to  classify  various  types.     But  Bonaventura  and  most 


A    DEFINITION   OF   MYSTICISM  267 

of  the  monastic  mystics  like  the  Victors  represent  this  type. 
Here  also  the  emotional  reappears  in  an  aesthetic  interest  which 
is  logically  an  intrusion,  but  which  finds  its  way  into  ecclesias- 
tical mysticism  through  the  rite  and  ceremony  of  the  church. 
Indeed  the  whole  apparatus  of  sacramental  magic  so  developed 
in  Roman  Catholicism  became  linked  with  this  special  school 
of  mystical  thinking,  and  obedience  to  outward  authority,  run- 
ning counter  to  the  general  extreme  individualism  of  mysticism, 
becomes  a  means  for  the  suppression  of  the  individual  will. 
But  as  in  all  t}^es  of  mysticism  these  things  are  but  means  to 
the  end.  Neither  speculation  nor  ecstasy,  nor  yet  obedience  to 
authority,  has  'per  se  any  merit;  all  are  but  methods  of  attaining 
the  supreme  purpose,  namely,  absorption  of  the  individual  and 
finite  into  the  infinite,  and  thus  attainment  of  ultimate  meta- 
physical union  with  God,  which  is  for  classic  mysticism  the  final 
definition  of  salvation.  Even  the  momentary  vision,  the  tem- 
porary union  with  the  Infinite  in  the  rapture  of  ecstasy,  the  sense 
of  loss  for  ever  so  short  a  time  of  the  sense  of  individuality  in 
emotional  excitement,  are  but  foretastes  of  the  final  and  complete 
absorption  of  all  phenomenal  being  in  the  Source  of  Being,  the 
definite  consummation  which  is  the  final  aim  of  all  really  self- 
conscious  mysticism. 


This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  upon  any  criticism  or  history 
of  mysticism,  nor  even  to  indicate  its  relation  to  Christian  thought 
and  feeling.  It  is  only  necessary  to  sum  up  in  a  word  the  ele- 
ments of  what  the  writer  deems  an  adequate  definition  of  mysti- 
cism: mysticism  as  a  system  makes  the  religious  goal  the  meta- 
physical union  of  the  soul  of  the  worshipper  with  God,  and  seeks 
this  union  by  the  way  of  speculation,  ecstasy,  rapture,  emotional 
surrender,  as  means  for  the  escaping  from  the  limits  of  person- 
ality. It  expects  to  overcome  phenomenal  dualism  by  a  divine 
absolution  into  the  All.  It  is  therefore  despondent  as  regards 
the  phenomenal  present,  but  is  stayed  up  by  the  religious  faith 
in  the  transcendent  victory  of  the  Eternal  God. 

GoTTiNGEN,  June  15,  1910. 


XXI 

ONE  LAW  OF  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 
By  Edward  C.  Moore 

No  question  is  more  seriously  before  us  at  the  present  moment 
than  the  question — What  is  Christianity?  This  is  the  form 
which  the  question  takes  among  us,  because  we  dwell  in  a  nomi- 
nally Christian  land.  For  us  the  alternative  in  the  large  is  Chris- 
tianity or  irreligion.  Judaism  is  the  vital  faith  of  some  among 
us.  But  Jews  too  are  asking — What  is  Judaism?  And  in 
that  astonishing  parity  of  movement,  which  now  pervades  all 
the  world  which  thinks,  Asiatics  are  raising  the  same  question 
about  their  indigenous  faiths.  Sober  spirits  in  Japan  are  asking 
— WTiat  shall  take  the  place  to  us  of  that  which  Shintoism  and 
Buddhism  have  been  to  our  ancestors  ?  Will  these  recover  their 
prestige?  Must  we  take  the  western  man's  religion,  as  we  have 
already  taken  his  civilization;  or  is  there  no  longer  any  place  for 
religion,  any  need  of  religion?  Men  are  asking  the  same  kind 
of  question  as  to  Confucianism  in  China.  Can  Confucianism 
possibly  make  this  astonishing  adjustment  to  new  conditions 
which  seems  requisite  ?  Can  an  ethical  system,  the  very  gist  of 
which  has  been  to  look  to  the  past,  learn  to  look  to  the  future? 
Can  it  be  to  the  men  of  the  new  generation  what  it  has  been  to 
their  ancestors?  If  not,  what  can  be  put  in  its  place?  It  will 
be  just  so  in  Turkey  when  the  stupendous  changes  inaugurated 
in  these  last  years  have  had  time  to  do  their  work.  Can  Mo- 
hammedanism keep  pace  with  the  changes  which  are  being 
made? 

We  say  that  this  immense  change  in  culture  and  civilization 
has  come  all  suddenly  to  Japan,  and  still  more  recendy  to  China. 
This  is  the  reason  why  those  nations  feel  the  stress  as  they  do. 
We  must  reflect  concerning  many  of  the  major  changes  in  the 

269 


270  THE   INTERPRETATION   OF  RELIGION 

view  of  the  universe  possible  to  an  educated  man,  how  recently 
these  have  come  to  us  in  Christendom.  We  must  not  imagine 
that  a  generation  ago  we  gave  to  Japan  sciences  of  nature,  of 
man  and  of  society,  which  were  already  current  among  us  many 
generations  ago.  The  view  of  nature  and  of  man's  relation  to 
it,  which  now  so  generally  prevails,  was  by  no  means  axiomatic 
here  in  America  when  Pumpelly,  Morse,  Clark,  and  Lyman  took 
it  in  1872  to  the  University  of  Tokyo.  It  was  a  theory  not  long 
made,  but  then  only  in  the  making.  The  evolutionary  view  of 
society,  of  morals,  and  of  religion  for  which  Comte  and  Herbert 
Spencer  stood  was  not  then  long-accepted  among  us.  Those 
views  were  at  that  time,  by  Christian  men  at  all  events,  almost 
universally  dissented  from.  The  view  of  sacred  history  and 
Scripture,  which  now  so  largely  obtains  among  us,  did  not  gen- 
erally obtain  until  long  after  the  time  of  which  we  speak.  In 
certain  portions  of  our  country  it  does  not  yet  prevail.  It  dis- 
placed a  view  of  oracular  revelation  practically  identical  with 
the  view  which  the  Mohammedan  holds  of  the  Koran  or  the 
Chinese  man  of  the  Great  Learning.  Such  a  view  of  the  divine 
revelation  was  for  those  who  held  it  the  foundation  of  a  view  of 
nature  and  of  society  which  could  not  possibly  maintain  itself  in 
the  face  of  that  which  the  sciences  were  declaring.  Christianity 
itself  has  not  perfectly  made,  and  in  some  regions  has  scarcely 
begun,  this  great  adjustment.  These  facts  should  be  encourag- 
ing to  us. 

We  said  a  moment  ago  that  we  had  no  occasion  to  feel  our- 
selves alone,  because  all  of  our  contemporaries,  with  their  re- 
ligions, are  passing  through  this  same  experience.  To  them  also 
has  come,  with  its  resistless  force,  this  much  altered  and  still- 
altering  world  view.  We  might  add  that  we  have  no  occasion 
to  think  ourselves  particularly  unfortunate.  All  of  our  ancestors 
have  passed  in  their  measure  through  a  like  experience,  and  all 
our  progeny  will  have  to  do  the  same.  The  Renaissance  virt- 
ually created  a  pagan  Europe.  The  Reformation  was  in  part 
made  necessary  by  that  paganism.  But  also  the  Reformation 
was  made  possible  only  by  that  Renaissance.  Save  for  that, 
Christianity  might  have  gone  on  for  ages,  as  it  had  done  for  a 
millennium,  unaltered  in  itself  but  steadily  losing  its  power  over 
the  world. 


THE    INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION  271 

This  action  and  reaction,  this  interaction  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  power  in  men  with  the  ever-advancing,  ever-destroy- 
ing, ever-rebuilding  activity  of  the  intellect  and  the  shaping  and 
re-shaping  of  the  outward  life  of  men  which  that  imposes — 
this  is  the  greatest  drama  of  the  human  race.  This  is  the  move- 
ment to  which  if  religions  are  not  able  to  live  up,  they  must  per- 
ish. A  whole  class  of  them,  the  nature  religions,  are  perishing 
under  our  very  eyes.  They  can  never  live  through  the  trans- 
formation involved  in  conformity  to  their  environment  in  the 
view  of  the  universe  of  the  modern  educated  man.  Whether 
a  religion  which  turns  its  face  away  from  this  life  and  the  world, 
as  does  Buddhism,  can  abide  this  transformation  remains  to  be 
seen.  On  the  other  hand,  the  utmost  magnificence  of  the  devel- 
opment of  the  outward  life  of  man  in  the  woild,  all  the  marvel- 
lous achievements  of  the  mind,  are  nothing  save  as  these  create 
in  this  new  world  only  a  new  field  for  the  moral  powers  and  a  new 
scope  for  the  spiritual  experiences  of  men.  No  inference  could 
find  less  justification  in  the  history  of  the  human  race  than  the 
inference  that  religion  will  not  survive.  But  what  form  relig- 
ion in  the  future  will  take  is  difficult  to  forecast. 

If  what  we  have  said  is  true,  then  we  are  prepared  to  find  that 
it  is  no  easy  matter  to  win  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  question 
— What  is  Christianity?  So  many  interpretations  Christianity 
has  had!  Such  manifold  effects  have  been  ascribed  to  it!  So 
long  is  now  the  retrospect  and  so  wide  has  been  the  area  of  its 
operation!  The  claims  grow  strident  among  us.  Old  mean- 
ings are  discredited.  The  very  newest  ones  divide  attention. 
But  among  all  these  interpretations  which  are  being  set  forth 
with  emphasis,  we  may  at  least  discern  two  groups.  We  may  take 
as  examples  two  larger  types  of  apprehension,  which  are  at  the 
present  moment,  through  agitation,  criticism  and  propaganda, 
present  to  almost  every  mind. 

There  is  on  the  one  hand  the  whole  group  of  movements  which 
have  for  a  decade  or  more  claimed  much  attention,  of  which  the 
common  thesis  is  that  Christianity  is  health.  The  health  of  the 
body  is  the  immediately  necessary  thing  which  the  religion  of 
the  soul  is  to  subserve.  Religion  is  healing.  This  healing  is  an 
individual  end;  that  is,  it  is  an  end  in  the  aspiration  of  the  indi- 
vidual for  himself.     It  is  as  truly  an  individual  and  not  a  social 


272  THE   INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

end  as  was  the  old-fashioned  soul-salvation.  It  inverts  the  re- 
lation of  the  physical  and  the  spiritual,  as  these  used  to  stand. 
For  the  moment  at  least,  the  great  significance  even  of  the  soul's 
condition  is  in  the  service  it  may  render  to  the  body's  state.  An 
outward,  present,  temporal  end  is  thus  set  in  the  forefront  of 
religious  discussion. 

Over  against  this  stands  our  second  group  and  type.  Chris- 
tianity is  social  amelioration.  It  is  this  reform  in  civil  or  eco- 
nomic condition  of  the  poor  and  distressed.  It  is  that  necessary 
and  beneficent  work.  It  is  sympathy  with  the  victims  of  the 
industrial  order.  It  is  the  endeavor,  by  persuasion  if  feasible 
and  by  force  if  necessary,  to  bring  about  a  new  order.  It  is  the 
beneficial  alteration  of  the  whole  outward  state  of  man.  What  we 
have  here  is  not  an  individual  end;  at  least,  not  dominantly 
such.  It  is  the  appeal  to  men  to  sacrifice  themselves,  if  need  be, 
for  a  common  end.  Devotion  to  this  aim  may  have  as  its  con- 
sequence the  sacrifice  of  the  individual,  his  wealth,  his  health, 
his  life  itself  if  need  be,  for  the  good  of  others.  This  is  the  point 
of  contrast  with  that  other  type.  It  hardly  admits  of  question 
that  the  contrast  is  immeasurably  to  the  advantage  of  the  type 
of  which  w^e  just  now  speak. 

Yet  the  coincidence  also  is  striking.  This  social  amelioration 
is,  like  that  other  end  of  health,  a  present,  outward,  an  immediate 
aim.  It  is  the  condition,  the  environment,  the  circumstance  of 
life,  which  is  to  be  transformed.  The  belief  is  wide-spread  even 
among  the  deeper  spirits  of  this  advocacy  that  the  inward  trans- 
formation of  men's  characters  can  take  place  only  after  an  out- 
ward change  in  their  lot  in  life  has  been  achieved.  Many  others 
are  of  course  entirely  frank  in  saying  that  their  minds  are  not  much 
occupied  with  this  matter  of  inward  and  spiritual  change.  They 
are  not  debating  character.  They  want  more  comfort.  Economic 
conditions,  social  welfare,  are  thdr  only  ends.  If  religion  will 
help  them  to  get  these,  they  are  for  religion.  If  not,  then  they 
have  no  use  for  religion.  And,  to  be  just,  no  one  can  deny  that 
the  altruism  and  heroism  shown  in  this  crusade  do  fill  the  place 
which  religion,  as  some  of  these  men  and  women  have  been  taught 
it,  has  left  vacant  in  their  souls. 

Often  enough  has  this  quality  of  Christianity  which  is  here 
revealed,  this  attitude  of  men  toward  Christianity  which  is  here 


THE   INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION  273 

illustrated,  been  commented  upon.  Almost  as  often  has  it  been 
forgotten  again.  Being  forgotten,  men  are  bewildered  by  the 
divergent  and  often  mutually-contradictory  claims.  The  Gos- 
pel seems  to  each  age,  and  almost  you  might  say  to  every  indi- 
vidual upon  whom  it  has  really  laid  hold,  as  if  it  had  been  writ- 
ten for  the  sake  of  the  special  problems  which,  to  that  age  or 
for  that  man,  appear  the  pressing  problems.  The  real  religion 
of  any  age,  of  any  man,  is  not  a  sacred  tradition  brought  along 
from  the  past,  no  matter  how  much  men  may  think  that  this  is  so. 
The  language  of  the  professedly  religious  may  become  well- 
nigh  unintelligible,  the  aims  which  they  have  associated  with 
religion  obsolete.  The  real  religion  of  any  man  is  in  the  things 
which  seem  to  that  man  divine  and  worthy  to  have  life  staked 
on  them.  What  we  mean  by  God,  as  Goethe  said,  is  always 
just  the  best  we  know.  When  this  condition  has  been  reached, 
men  will  divide  according  to  their  temperament.  Some  men  will 
serve  these  ideals,  and  yet  carry  forward  the  tradition  for  a  time, 
so  to  say,  in  a  separate  compartment  of  their  souls.  Others  will 
serve  these  same  new  and  majestic  ideals  without  the  slightest 
regard  to  the  tradition,  or  in  bitter  condemnation  of  the  same. 
Looking  askance  at  the  Galilean  Church  in  its  unholy  alliance 
with  the  Bourbon  state,  Madame  Roland  said  in  the  great  days 
of  '89:  "The  declaration  of  the  rights  of  men  is  the  new  Gospel 
of  God.  Religion?  The  French  Constitution  is  our  religion, 
on  behalf  of  which  the  French  people  are  ready  to  die." 

But  the  interesting  thing  is  that,  so  likely  as  men  are  in  such 
a  crisis  either  sadly  or  else  madly  to  break  with  institutional 
Christianity,  they  do  not  always  seem  to  themselves  to  have  broken 
with  Christ.  The  old  name  exerts  a  spell.  It  has,  in  Schiller's 
phrase,  been  "hallowed  by  the  might  of  years."  The  real  re- 
ligion of  any  age  is  in  the  masterful  and  actually  mastering  ideals 
of  that  age.  But  new  religions  are  not  now  manufactured. 
Old  ones  must  be  stretched  to  do.  ^\^lere,  in  a  na'iver  time,  a 
great  new  insight  would  have  fathered  a  new  faith,  now  men  cry — 
"Not at  all!  This  is  no  new  faith;  it  is  only  the  true  interpreta- 
tion of  the  faith  which  we  have  already  had."  A  new  purpose 
dawning  upon  a  new  generation  in  all  the  freshness  of  its  majesty 
yet  sets  men  only  reaching  backward  through  sixty  generations. 
It  causes  men  to  say,  often  with  sublime  self-confidence,  Christ 


274  THE   INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION 

had  this  purpose  too;  in  fact  this  was  his  main,  his  sole  purpose. 
Is  this  feehng  true,  or  false?  Does  it  signify,  as  some  would 
say,  that  Christianity  is  by  this  very  fact  proved  to  be  of  infinite 
significance  ?  Is  it  thus  clear  that  Christ's  religion  is  of  limitless 
freshness  and  originality,  of  unwasting  power,  holding  in  germ 
all  things  within  itself,  evolving  gradually  all  things  out  of  itself, 
even  some  things  which  previous  generations  of  true  Christians 
never  would  have  dreamed?  Upon  other  minds  the  same 
phenomenon  produces  just  the  opposite  effect.  They  say — "  On 
your  own  terms,  Christianity  is  anything  and  everything.  Any 
good  which  the  old  world  by  its  tears  and  sweat  and  blood  has 
won,  the  Christians  claim.  That  is,  they  claim  it  after  it  is  won. 
Ignored,  fiercely  resisted  by  the  religion  of  its  day,  bloody  and 
miry,  the  new  era  beats  its  way  forward  on  its  lonely,  glorious 
road.  It  has  always  trodden  the  wine-press  alone — this  advance 
of  humanity."  Yet  in  the  end  you  men  of  Jesus  say — "It  is 
true  that  our  fathers  did  not  clearly  perceive  all  this.  But  you 
have  said  nothing  which  Jesus  did  not  say,  done  nothing  which 
Jesus  did  not  plan." 

The  antagonism  to  religion  and  Christianity  is  only  an  apparent 
one.  It  results  from  the  mistaken  assumption  that  Christianity 
is  something  definable,  and  furthermore  that  it  is  something 
stationary.  We  must  own  that  the  guardians  of  the  Christian 
tradition  have  themselves  confidently  asserted  that  Christianity 
is  definable.  They  have  described  it  as  unchangeable.  The 
alienation  from  an  unalterable  Christianity  may  be  quite  ex- 
plicable. But  if  religion  is  the  force  of  ever-expanding  truth 
and  ever-enlarging  goodness,  if  it  is  coincident  with  truth  ever 
freshly  revealing  itself,  ever  to  be  revealed — if  it  is  itself  identical 
with  the  advance  of  humanity  to  new  goodnesses  which  make 
the  old  goodnesses  to  seem  inadequate  or  even  bad — surely  that  is 
a  different  matter.  Only,  to  make  good  that  contention,  one  has 
to  realize  how  large  a  part  of  the  religion  of  the  world  is  of  the 
unofficial,  the  unprofessed,  and  even  of  the  unconscious  sort. 
Not  in  the  tenets,  the  practices,  the  concrete  manifestations  of 
the  spirit  of  the  confessedly  religious,  but  in  the  moving  of  the 
ever-living  and  all-loving  God  upon  and  in  and  through  the  whole 
humanity — there  lies  religion.  "  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead, 
but  of  the  living." 


THE   INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION  275 

If  this  is  true,  then  it  appears  to  be  quite  obvious  that  no  claim 
can  be  made  for  a  complete  and  absolute  revelation  of  religion. 
The  revealer  of  religion,  in  proportion  as  his  own  soul  is  pure 
and  his  own  ideal  high,  must  have  had  his  times  of  realizing  that 
every  word  he  said,  every  deed  he  did,  was  but  a  bare  fragment. 
It  drew  from  out  the  infinite.  It  had  reach  into  the  infinite. 
But  in  itself  it  was  set  round  with  sharp,  prosaic  limitations  of 
the  actual  life.  He  must  have  had  sorrowful,  sure  forecast  how 
his  zealous  followers  would  seize  upon  some  aspect  of  his  teaching 
or  example,  and  would  fairly  crush  in  their  tenacious  grasp  the 
perishable  flower  which  his  pure  spirit  had  put  forth  as  time  and 
circumstance  had  called  for  it.  They  would  cry — "  This  was  his 
religion!"  He  would  answer — ''No,  that  was  only  a  passing 
expression  of  it." 

It  belongs  apparently  to  the  intensity  of  the  revealing  temper, 
it  has  been  a  general  trait  of  the  monitors  for  God  to  men,  that 
they  have  lived  within  a  certain  stress.  They  saw  their  given 
truths  in  fiery  isolation.  They  set  them  forth  with  a  tremendous 
emphasis,  as  if  there  were  no  other  truths  besides.  It  was  said 
concerning  Luther  that  apparently  even  God  could  hardly  make 
a  man  strong  enough  without  making  him  too  strong.  Without 
diminishing  our  reverence  for  these  revealers,  Mohammed, 
Confucius,  Buddha,  Moses,  one  may  say  that  their  truth  was  not 
the  whole  truth.  Nor,  on  the  same  principle,  can  Jesus'  truth 
uttered  in  specific  words  or  given  in  concrete  example  have  been 
the  whole  truth.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  in  Jesus'  larger  sense  for 
the  whole,  his  realization  of  the  limitation  of  the  parts,  his  refusal 
to  say  that  in  given  tenets  or  certain  practices  lay  the  whole 
Gospel;  it  is  in  his  serene  view  of  every  aspect  of  man's  life,  his 
infinite  patience  with  things  which  he  could  not  conquer,  his 
brooding  over  the  men  and  things  he  could  not  shape  to  his  de- 
sire;— it  is  exactly  in  his  sense  of  limitation,  as  truly  as  in  his 
sense  that  he  had  hold  on  the  unlimited,  that  we  feel  that  Jesus 
is  a  greater  revealer  of  the  meaning  of  religion  than  the  rest. 

The  tenor  of  Christ's  life,  the  body  of  his  teaching,  gives  us 
the  right  and  lays  upon  us  the  injunction  to  say  something  to 
this  effect:  There  is  no  human  woe  of  whatsoever  sort  or  source 
to  which  he  was  indift'erent,  or  of  which  he  would  not  censure 
us  for  being  negligent.     There  is  no  improvement  of  the  condi- 


276  THE   INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION 

tions  of  man's  life  thinkable,  no  enlargement  of  liberty  or  privi- 
lege possible,  no  enhancement  of  man's  power  of  attainment  of 
the  good  things  which  appeal  to  him,  no  uplifting,  widening  and 
enriching  of  existence,  which  would  not  appeal  to  Jesus.  Noth- 
ing could  be  easier  than  to  prove  from  the  face  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment Jesus'  compassion  for  the  sufferings  of  men  and  women 
in  the  body,  his  gentle  solicitude  for  those  under  aberration  of 
the  mind.  He  seems  to  have  been  unfailing  in  his  eagerness  to 
do  what  in  him  lay  to  mitigate  and  to  forefend  these  woes.  So 
true  is  this  that  we  cannot  sufficiently  wonder  that  men  in  Chris- 
tian ages  have  esteemed  it  the  superior  piety  to  neglect  these 
things,  and  have  so  prevailingly  lived  in  a  fixed  attention  upon 
an  alleged  other  world  than  this. 

None  the  less,  when  one  shuts  the  Book,  and  with  quiet  mind 
would  conjure  up  the  benign  figure  of  the  Christ;  when  one  asks 
— Did  he  really  see  the  problems  of  the  outward  and  the  present 
in  the  proportions  and  the  isolation  that  we  do  ? — surely  there  can 
be  but  one  answer.  It  seems  the  very  sacrilege  of  misunderstand- 
ing to  link  his  name  with  a  cult  whose  major  emphasis  is  upon 
the  care  of  the  body  and  the  escape  from  suffering.  So  many 
things  palpably  appear  to  his  mind  to  have  been  of  an  impor- 
tance infinitely  greater  than  the  body's  life.  So  incredible  does 
it  appear  from  Christ's  standpoint,  when  one  sees  him  clearly 
and  sees  him  whole,  that  a  man  should,  because  of  distress,  stand 
back  from  sacrifice,  or  for  a  pain  evade  a  heroism,  or  lose  faith 
in  God  if  torture  should  befall,  or  imagine  that  in  gaining  health 
he  gained  anything  which  differentiates  him  from  the  beasts, 
unless  indeed  he  uses  health  for  a  transcendent  end. 

And  again,  nothing  could  be  easier  than  to  prove  from  the  very 
face  of  Scripture,  Jesus'  sweet  compassion  for  the  poor;  his  fierce 
wrath  against  those  who  in  oppression  made  them  poor;  his  con- 
tempt for  and  his  menace  toward  the  unjust,  the  ungenerous, 
the  indifferent  rich.  That  thing  is  so  easy  that  verily  it  requires 
no  extraordinary  art  to  do  it.  Nothing  could  be  easier  than  to 
show  his  interest  in  what  we  now  call  the  social  questions.  The 
amazement  is  that  with  such  an  example  of  Jesus  before  our 
eyes,  this  whole  range  of  his  opinions  and  his  sentiments  should 
have  left  the  Christian  body  so  long  measurably  untouched;  that 
the  Church  could  have  remained  so  long  on  good  terms  with  a 


THE   INTERPRETATION   OF  RELIGION  277 

social  order,  which  you  would  think  could  not  have  escaped  its 
condemnation  the  first  moment  that  the  Church  seriously  thought 
of  Christ. 

None  the  less,  when  we  close  the  Book  and  think,  we  realize 
that  what  we  have  in  Jesus  is  not  a  theorist  upon  society.  He 
was  no  theorist  upon  government,  or  commerce,  upon  crafts, 
trade,  capital  and  labor.  He  had  not  that  kind  of  mind.  He 
was  not  at  the  level  of  knowledge  of  those  subjects,  even  as 
that  knowledge  existed  in  his  day;  much  less  had  he  the  miracu- 
lous forecast  which  would  have  made  him  level  with  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  social  sciences  in  our  own  day.  All  that  seems  the 
ecstasy  of  a  partisan  misunderstanding.  What  we  have  in 
Jesus  is  transcendent  religious  genius.  What  we  have  is  the 
consequent  appreciation  of  the  principle  of  love.  What  we  have 
is  the  proclaimer  of  brotherhood,  the  apostle  of  selflessness,  one 
who  made  earnest  with  the  precept  as  old  as  Confucius,  though 
no  doubt  Jesus  did  not  know  that, — "  Whatsoever  ye  would 
fiiat  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them." 

But  over  and  above  his  solicitude  for  a  man's  outward  state, 
his  wrath  at  injustice,  his  demand  of  rights,  his  proclamation 
as  to  duties  in  this  sphere,  it  seems  as  if  one  must  be  altogether 
carried  away  in  his  excitement  if  he  does  not  hear  an  altogether 
different  note.  It  is  the  note  of  one  to  whom,  for  himself,  the 
outward  life  means  not  overmuch.  It  is  the  note  of  one  who 
would  teach  others  to  care  for  that  life  not  overmuch.  It  is  the 
note  of  one  whose  heart  would  have  been  broken  if  in  giving  men 
mere  things,  which,  to  be  sure,  he  might  rejoice  to  give  them, 
he  yet  fostered  in  them  an  insatiable  lust  for  the  mere  things. 
It  is  the  note  of  one  who  knows  that  for  a  man  there  will  always 
be  facts  infinitely  more  significant  than  those  which  come  to 
him,  or  which  can  be  taken  from  him,  in  the  chances  of  his  out- 
ward lot.  It  is  the  note  of  one  who  profoundly  distrusts  wealth, 
comfort,  leisure,  power.  He  distrusts  them  because  by  wealth, 
ease,  power — possessed  or  even  only  inordinately  striven  for — 
men's  souls  are  prone  to  be  made  sordid  and  their  characters  made 
base.  It  seems  an  utter  eclipse  of  insight  into  the  meaning  of 
religion,  a  well-nigh  incredible  vanishing  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  age  of  the  obvious  meaning  of  Christ,  to  set  him  forth 
in  this  exclusive  apprehension  as  the  patron  saint  of  schemes 


278  THE    INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION 

whereby  outward,  present,  earthly  wishes  only,  no  matter  how 
legitimate,  may  be  gratified. 

Now  all  of  this  which  we  have  been  saying  is  only  another 
illustration  of  the  great  law  of  religion  to  which  we  alluded  above. 
It  is  only  a  reminder  from  the  life  of  our  generation  how  each 
succeeeding  age  has  read  into  Christ's  teachings,  or  drawn  out 
of  Christ's  teachings,  that  special  meaning  which  that  generation, 
or  that  race,  that  social  level  or  that  individual  man  needed  to 
have  drawn.  Nothing  could  be  more  enlightening  than  is  re- 
flection upon  the  process  of  which  we  speak — this  reading  of  the 
ever-changing  ideals  of  man's  life  into  Christianity,  or  of  Chris- 
tianity into  the  ever-advancing  ideals  of  man's  life.  This  chame- 
leon-like quality  of  Christianity  is  the  farthest  possible  remove 
from  the  changelessness  which  men  have  loved  to  attribute  to 
their  religion.  It  is  the  most  wonderful  quality  which  Chris- 
tianity possesses.  It  is  a  quality  which  Christianity  apparently 
possesses  in  a  degree  far  greater  than  has  any  other  religion 
which  has  ruled  the  hearts  of  men.  It  is  upon  this  sensitive 
response  to  the  law  of  change,  this  preservation  of  itself  as 
spiritual  impulse  in  and  through  all  change; — upon  that,  and 
upon  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  men  after  that  moral  fortifying 
and  that  spiritual  impulse  in  the  midst  of  all  the  changes  of  their 
lives,  that  one  may  base  his  absolute  confidence  in  the  perma- 
nence of  Christianity. 

Shall  we  say  that  we  can  infer  the  ruling  ideas  of  an  age  from 
the  complexion  which  its  religion  takes?  Or  shall  we  declare 
that  we  can  be  sure  of  the  complexion  which  the  religion  of  an 
age,  a  race,  a  social  level,  or  of  an  individual  man  will  take,  when 
once  we  know  the  aims  which  really  dominate  that  age?  This 
method  of  diagnosing  the  ever-varying  states  of  our  religion  is 
in  high  degree  suggestive.  We  have  perhaps  been  used  to  think- 
ing that  religion  makes  the  age.  In  larger  measure  possibly 
than  we  suspect,  the  age  makes  the  religion;  that  is,  it  determines 
that  aspect  of  religion  which  will  be  real  to  that  age.  It  is  the 
fact  that  our  generation  makes  so  much  of  getting  well  and  keep- 
ing well  which  has  transformed  the  confessional  into  a  clinic, 
made  the  cure  of  souls  the  patching-up  of  bodies,  replaced  the 
preacher-pastor  by  the  healer,  or  at  least  given  some  ministers 
the  unquiet  feeling  that  unless  they  set  up  a  healing  annex  they 


THE   INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION  279 

may  be  displaced.  Ours  is  an  age  supremely  sensitive  to  physi- 
cal discomfort,  preoccupied  with  provision  for  comfort,  averse 
to  pain,  and  glad  to  turn  away  from  sorrow.  It  is  an  age  firmly 
convinced  that  men  and  women  have  suffered  many  things  in 
time  past  as  irremediable,  which,  rather,  it  is  our  obvious  duty 
to  remedy.  In  such  an  age  we  find  the  parallel  and  subordi- 
nate phenomenon  of  an  interpretation  of  religion,  also,  in  which 
the  point  of  central  interest  for  many  is  the  abolishing  of  pain, 
the  turning  away  from  sorrow,  the  achieving  and  maintaining 
at  all  costs  of  the  blessing  of  good  health  and  of  an  untroubled 
mind,  not  because,  in  the  old  worn  path  of  conflict,  it  has  tri- 
umphed over  trouble,  but  because  it  has  fled  from  it  or  even  has 
denied  that  there  is  trouble. 

Equally  upon  the  other  side,  it  is  an  age  haunted  by  the  sense 
of  the  terrific  social  and  economic  inequalities  which  prevail, 
which  has  set  its  heart  upon  the  redress  and  elimination  of  those 
inequalities.  It  is  an  age  whose  disrespect  for  religion  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  religion  has  not  done  away  with  those  inequalities; 
which  is  interested  at  once  in  an  interpretation  of  religion  which 
will  make  central  the  contention  that,  before  all  else,  these  par- 
ticular inequalities  are  to  be  done  away.  These  are  the  terms, 
so  to  say,  upon  which  religion  can  have  men's  suffrages,  but  not 
on  any  other.  They  know  what  they  want.  If  religion  will  help 
them  to  get  what  they  want,  then  they  want  religion.  If  not,  then 
they  will  make  their  religion  out  of  the  pursuit  of  these  things 
for  themselves  and  others.  There  never  was  an  age  of  greater 
intensity  of  life.  But  that  intensity  sets  tangible  objects  before 
itself.  It  seeks  to  compass  definite  ends.  It  is  intolerant  of  waste 
of  energy  on  other  ends.  If  religion  can  be  made  a  means  of 
every  man's  getting  his  share  of  the  good  of  this  world, — well  and 
good.  If  not,  then  there  are  many  men  to  whom  religion  seems 
utterly  meaningless. 

We  run  some  risk  of  seeing  these  facts  in  an  inverted  order. 
It  is  not  Christianity  as  it  has  been  generally  taught  in  the  past 
which  has  created  this  type  of  mind — unless,  indeed,  you  well 
say  that  it  may  have  aided  to  create  this  type  on  the  principle  of 
contrariety.  Rather  the  reverse  is  true: — it  is  the  type  of  mind 
which  is  just  now  so  largely  prevalent  among  us  which  has  cre- 
ated the  interpretation  of  religion  of  which  we  speak,  which  has 


280  ■  THE    INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION 

given  it  its  prominence  in  the  present,  and  which  sets  it  forth 
with  confidence  as  the  religion  of  the  future. 

Let  us  seek  for  a  moment  for  some  other  illustrations.  There 
is  an  old  tale  of  a  man  in  Constantinople  to  whom,  when  he  asked 
for  a  bath,  it  was  replied  that  "  the  Son  was  consubstantial  with 
the  Father."  We  find  it  hard  to  put  ourselves  in  the  position 
of  men  who  had  such  a  taste  for  metaphysics.  But  it  is  a  relief 
to  be  convinced  that  it  was  not  the  Christian  religion  which  cre- 
ated that  taste.  Rather,  the  Christian  religion  was  accommo- 
dated to  that  taste,  already  existent  and  wide-spread.  There 
are  many  of  us  who  have  stood  before  these  great  old  creeds, 
the  Nicene,  the  Athanasian,  and  the  rest,  and  wondered  how 
Christianity  could  ever  have  produced  them.  It  is  a  comfort 
to  argue  that  Christianity  alone  and  unaided  never  did  produce 
them.  Christianity,  entering  upon  the  declining  world  of  Hel- 
lenic intellectualism,  became  transformed  in  the  hands  of  the 
men  of  that  age  into  the  sort  of  thing  which  they  esteemed  of 
transcendent  significance. 

The  early  Church  taught  submission  to  the  powers  that  be. 
The  later  Church  taught  submission  of  the  powers  that  be  to 
the  Church.  You  will  say  that  the  Christians  submitted  when 
they  were  forced  so  to  do,  and  dominated  when  they  could. 
That  is,  however,  not  quite  the  whole  case.  They  clothed  their 
submission  in  the  old  days  of  persecution  and  of  martyrdom  with 
a  great  ideal.  They  submitted  to  outward  tyranny  as  men  who, 
in  submission,  could  maintain  the  freedom  of  the  soul.  They 
suffered  reproach  gladly,  so  only  that  in  the  eyes  of  God  and  of 
men  of  like  mind  with  themselves  they  were  above  reproach. 
Kings  in  the  spirit,  what  mattered  the  bondage  and  torment  of 
the  flesh!  Furthermore,  the  better  men  among  them  meant  to 
stand  also  for  a  great  ideal  when  they  came  to  rule.  There 
swayed  before  the  mind  of  many  a  pope  and  bishop  the  vision 
of  an  earth  ruled  as  God  would  have  it  ruled.  It  is  difiicult  to 
withhold  this  meed  of  praise  from  a  man  like  Innocent  III,  or 
Alexander  in  his  struggle  with  the  Barbarossa,  or  Hildebrand  in 
his  conflict  with  Henry  IV,  or  Becket  in  his  strife  with  Henry  II. 
But  the  vision  was  beyond  the  power  of  realization  of  men. 
Most  of  all,  a  quality  which  they  had  when  they  were  weak — 
respect  for  the  lowly,  sense  for  the  holy — largely  forsook  them 


THE    INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION  281 

when  they  were  strong.  Their  dominion  became  just  like  the  other 
dominions,  only  the  worse  for  its  shams  and  its  hypocrisies. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  make  real  to  ourselves  the  attitude  of  mind 
of  men  who  felt  that  they  must  leave  the  world  to  walk  with 
God.  The  eremite,  the  celibate,  the  ascetic,  we  have  so  long 
judged  without  sympathy  that  we  now  judge  them  without  even 
intelligence.  The  monastic  life  probably  seems  to  many  of 
us  absolutely  foolish  and  inane.  There  we  are  wrong.  Too 
many  wise  and  great  and  good  have  lived  that  life,  that  we  should 
be  quite  so  cavalier.  One  stands  before  the  vast  fabric  created 
by  an  apprehension  of  Christ's  religion  essentially  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  total  denial  of  the  worth  and  significance  of  this 
present  life  and  world;  one  reads  the  words  of  Benedict  and  Ber- 
nard, of  Francis,  of  Xavier  and  Loyola,  of  Pascal  and  Molinos, 
and  says — "How  did  Christ's  Christianity  ever  come  to  that?" 
The  answer  is,  as  before, — Christ's  religion  alone  and  unaided 
never  did  come  to  that.  It  was  Christianity  working  on  an  age 
in  which  those  ideals  were  regnant,  which  made  that  the  regnant 
Christianity  and  was  itself  transformed  after  those  ideals. 

We  cry — No,  the  world,  with  its  wonderful,  rich,  full  life,  is 
the  place  to  walk  with  God!  The  world  needs  to  have  Chris- 
tians walking  in  it,  not  withdrawing  into  holes  and  corners  from 
it.  The  Christians  need  the  world,  that  they,  on  their  part, 
may  not  become  mere  shadows  and  parodies  of  men,  but  compe- 
tent and  practical,  turning  the  wisdom  of  God's  spirit  to  some 
good  account.  One  wholly  admits  that.  And  one  sees  many 
men  who  are  walking  in  the  world,  of  some  of  whom  one  is  not 
so  sure  that  they  are  walking  it  with  God.  One  sees  many  men 
who  represent  what  they,  with  furtive  glance  at  others,  have  called 
*'&  working  gospel."  But  one  is  not  sure  that  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  nearer  by  their  work.  One  thing  we  may  know: — that 
if  we  keep  on  sufficiently  long  with  this  our  boasted  religion  of 
the  outward,  of  the  practical,  of  the  present,  of  the  human, 
we  shall  have  need  of  some  man  from  the  wilderness  to  come  some 
day  and  tell  us  what  religion  is. 

We  boast  ourselves  of  our  Puritan  forefathers.  If  we  were 
quite  honest  we  might  say  that  they  are  good  to  be  descended 
from — better  than  to  live  with.  But  frankly  it  is  beyond  our 
power  to  enter  into  their  sense  of  the  eternal,  of  the  future,  of 


282  THE  INTERPRETATION   OF  RELIGION 

the  transcendent  worth  of  the  spiritual;  into  their  conviction  of 
the  worthlessness  of  life  save  as  grandly  controlled  from  within 
and  animated  from  above.  We  do  not  instinctively  understand 
their  construction  even  of  the  liberty  for  which  they  strove, — 
not  as  freedom  to  do  what  a  man  himself  may  choose  to  do,  but 
merely  as  a  necessary  condition  of  man's  being  able  to  do  what 
God  chooses  to  have  him  do.  We  read  Jonathan  Edwards' 
sermon  on  "Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God."  W^e  per- 
ceive how  real  it  was  to  him  that  man  has  no  worth  or  hope  until 
God  shall  supervene  upon  his  damned  state;  how  real  it  was  to 
him  that  the  new  birth  was  a  convulsion,  a  total  separation  of 
the  man's  new  self  from  his  old  self.  Religion  meant  always 
giving  up.  The  world  was  created  apparently  on  purpose  to 
be  given  up.  We  know  how  near  to  insanity  the  question  some- 
times brought  men  as  to  whether  or  not  they  were  the  elect  of 
God.  If  one  looked  out  of  eyes  to  which  all  that  was  real,  how 
unreal  all  the  life  of  men  here  upon  earth,  alike  its  happiness  and 
its  miseries,  must  have  seemed.  We  stand  before  this  truly 
Dantean  fabric  and  ask — "How  did  Christianity  ever  come  to 
that?"  The  reply  is,  as  before,  that  Christ's  Christianity  alone 
and  unaided  never  did  come  to  that. 

Yet  it  might  be  worth  while  to  ask  ourselves  what  Jonathan 
Edwards  would  think  of  our  resolution  of  religion  into  a  so- 
licitude for  the  body's  health  and  an  exclusive  enthusiasm  for 
man's  economic  state.  We  think  his  religiousness  unreal;  but 
what  would  he  think  of  our  realities  ?  Thomas  Carlyle  has  told 
us,  in  no  measured  language,  what  he  thinks  of  the  kind  of  re- 
ligion which  most  takes  our  fancy.  This  was  not  because  Carlyle 
would  have  been  in  all  respects  at  one  with  Jonathan  Edwards. 
Carlyle  is  not  prejudicedly  orthodox;  he  was  agnostic,  pessimistic, 
he  has  several  of  the  marks  of  the  liberal;  but  he  does  know  what 
religion  is.  We  turn  the  pages  of  Tolstoi.  If  ever  there  was 
a  country  in  which  agitation  might  seem  justifiable,  that  country 
might  be  Russia.  But  Tolstoi  too  has  moments  when  the  Chris- 
tianity in'him  brings  his  socialism  to  a  full  pause.  We  read  Ibsen. 
We  are  shaken  by  his  terrible  realism.  He  talks  much  of  the 
Christian  religion.  Religion  is  too  great  a  factor  in  life  not  to 
be  drawn  within  the  vortex  of  his  realistic  delineation.  But  we 
close  the  book  often  with  the  wonder  whether  Ibsen  really  did 


THE    INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION  283 

know  what  religion  was.  We  read  Fogazzaro — II  Santo.  Our 
idea  of  a  saint  would  hardly  be  his.  But  he  is  not  a  Roman 
Catholic  for  nothing.  He  knows  that  the  greatest  saint  is  not 
the  most  assiduous  shiner  of  brasses  in  this  brazen  and  shiny 
world. 

Religion  has  had  these  two  seemingly-opposite  effects  upon 
the  souls  of  men.  It  has  tended  to  give  men  inward  peace  and 
power  by  revealing  to  them  the  beauty  and  the  glory  of  the  life 
which  is  by  the  things  of  the  spirit,  often  in  the  face  of  the  bitter 
oppositions  and  insuperable  obstacles  of  the  life  in  the  flesh. 
It  has  made  them  lords  of  the  world  within,  even  if  they  were 
bound  in  affliction  and  iron  in  the  world  without.  It  has  been 
the  secret  of  the  magnificent  denial  of  any  decisive  significance 
of  the  world,  with  its  strivings  and  its  ills,  so  only  that  a  man 
put  it  under  his  foot  and  set  his  heart  upon  holiness  within  and 
God  above.  Stoicism,  which,  besides  being  a  philosophy,  was 
also  a  religion,  was  a  religion  of  this  cast.  The  clear  soul  of 
Aurelius  found  here  its  refuge  amid  the  incredible  abominations 
and  monstrous  wickednesses  of  the  decadent  ancient  world.  By 
this  he  held  himself  to  his  duty  as  emperor  when  all  else  within 
him  would  have  prompted  him  to  flee  from  that  duty. 

Buddhism,  with  its  outlook  on  the  illimitable  woe  of  man's 
existence,  on  the  hopelessness  of  man's  striving  after  worthy 
things  and  the  worthlessness  of  most  of  the  things  for  which  men 
strive,  was  a  religion  dominantly  of  this  cast.  Whole  ages  and 
areas  of  Christianity,  as  well,  have  worn  this  cast.  Jesus  had 
this  side.  Here  his  serene,  triumphant  spirit  rescued  itself  as 
over  against  a  world  of  pagan  rottenness  and  Jewish  bigotry. 
This  recourse  religion  was  to  him  in  proper  part  as  he  lived  out 
his  little  span  of  life  in  a  world  which  he  could  hardly,  in  smallest 
measure,  yet  begin  to  transform  according  to  his  holy  will. 
Fortified  in  his  unstained  conscience  and  upheld  in  the  faith  of 
God,  the  more  absolute  is  the  catastrophe  of  his  outward  lot, 
the  more  is  his  soul  sure  of  belonging  to  a  realm  in  which  such 
catastrophes  never  by  any  possibility  occur.  The  world  has 
not  been  wrong  in  supposing  that  exactly  in  this  he  was  the  great 
revealer  of  religion. 

Paul,  fighter  that  he  was,  well  knew  that  there  were  more  vic- 
tories in  the  world  than  he  would  ever  win.     Slavery  might  be 


284  THE    INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION 

the  absolute  contradiction  of  the  principle  of  Christian  brother- 
hood, yet  even  slavery  might  stand  temporarily,  so  only  that 
master  and  man  knew  each  the  other  as  a  brother-soul.  The 
persecuted  might  have  to  put  up  with  persecution.  Christian- 
ity does  not  mean  every  man's  taking  up  cudgels  with  all  the 
world  at  once.  The  distressed  may  still  have  to  bear  distresses, 
the  poor  their  poverty,  the  sick  and  crippled  their  disease.  The 
complete  remedies  of  all  these  things  might  still  be  far  off,  and 
none  the  less  a  man  might  know  himself  to  be  God's  child  in  all. 
"For  this  thing" — the  Apostle  himself  says — "I  besought  the 
Lord  thrice  that  it  might  depart  from  me;  and  he  said  unto  me, 
*  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee.' "  Hear  George  Fox,  the  Quaker, 
in  prison,  sick,  insulted:  "Christ  it  was  that  opened  to  me  when 
I  was  shut  up,  and  had  no  hope  or  faith;  Christ  who  enlightened 
me,  gave  me  his  light  to  believe  in.  He  gave  me  hopes  which  he 
himself  revealed  in  me;  he  gave  me  spirit  and  grace  which  I  found 
sufficient  in  deeps  and  weaknesses." 

Nor  is  this  all  the  religion  of  times  dead.  The  poor,  the  sick, 
the  despondent,  the  defeated,  the  broken-hearted — these  are  with 
us  still.  Even  the  mightiest  struggler  for  reform,  so  only  that 
he  do  not  blind  his  soul  with  clay,  so  only  that  his  hope  is  still 
of  such  grandeur  that  all  successes  seem  but  failures  when  they 
are  won, — these  represent  that  old  religion  still.  They  wait  not 
for  the  heaven  of  the  fat  and  prosperous,  but  having  done  their 
part  toward  the  great  transformation,  they  make  of  troubled 
earth  a  heaven  by  the  spirit  which  they  show.  Even  Goethe 
said — "Who  never  ate  his  bread  in  tears,  or  weeping  watched 
through  anxious  nights,  he  never  knew  the  heavenly  powers."  It 
is  sometimes  said  that  this  is  the  religion  of  the  passive  Orient. 
Even  that  is  a  mistake.  The  religion  of  the  militant  West  is 
full  of  it.  With  all  its  agitating,  fighting,  reforming,  it  would  be 
far  less  religious  than  it  is  did  it  not  answer  to  this  note.  Not 
even  from  the  soul  of  the  same  person  do  these  two  aspects  of 
religion  shut  one  another  out. 

But  it  must  be  owned  that  this  one  of  which  I  have  just  spoken 
is  not  the  phase  of  religion  which  our  own  age  best  understands 
and  loves;  rather  it  is  the  one  which  we,  ofttimes  with  scorn,  re- 
pudiate. A  conquering  age,  a  dominating  race,  personalities 
used  to  achievement  in  the  outward,  set  their  hearts  on  other 


THE   INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION  285 

things.  The  scorn  of  content  with  the  things  with  which  we 
ought  not  to  be  contented  possesses  us.  The  very  words  which 
pious  souls  have  framed  seem  blasphemous  to  us  in  our  altered 
mood.  The  present  violent  denunciation  of  the  Church  voices 
itself  in  some  such  terms.  The  Church's  condemnation  of 
itself  runs  to  the  same  effect.  To  have  pointed  men  to  heaven 
when  it  should  have  lent  a  hand  to  make  the  earth  a  little  less 
like  hell;  to  have  harped  upon  the  soul  when  what  was  needed 
was  to  feed  and  clothe  the  body;  to  have  asked  men  to  be  patient 
when  sick,  instead  of  taking  up  into  our  holy  place  of  religion  the 
intent  to  make  them  well — these  seem  the  last  betrayals  of  re- 
ligion by  supposedly  religious  men.  And  so  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  there  is  not  a  problem  which  modern  society  presents  which 
is  not  being  set  forth  in  the  light  of  an  object  of  religious  pur- 
pose and  religious  apprehension.  Admirable  is  the  recognition 
that  it  is  within  the  scope  of  our  Christianity  to  take  up  every 
fight  that  needs  to  be  fought,  to  bear  every  burden  that  is  to  be 
borne,  to  hold  back  nothing  until  the  full  idealization  of  man's 
life,  as  we  believe  that  God  designed  it,  shall  have  been  secured. 

But  what  we  wish  to  bring  out  is  that  this  view  is  no  more 
adequate  when  it  stands  alone  than  is  that  other  view  when  it 
stands  alone.  The  excesses  and  extravagancies  upon  the  one 
side  are  as  disastrous  as  are  the  exaggerations  on  the  other.  A 
religion  which  is  all  of  this  world  must  in  the  end  be  but  a  parody 
of  religion,  so  surely  as  must  a  religion  which  is  all  of  the  soul  and 
of  the  other  world.  It  is  this  which  we  feel  when  the  smallness, 
the  fragmentary  nature,  the  outward  and  passing  quality  of  that 
which  thus  for  some  takes  up  into  itself  the  whole  energy  of  re- 
ligion, sometimes  appals  us. 

For  this  would  seem  to  be  the  true  thing  here  to  say:  A  single 
object  of  ethical,  social,  economic  endeavor  may  be  quite  le- 
gitimate. It  is  the  great  sign  of  the  times  that  we  seek  to  spread 
thus  the  apprehension  of  the  sacred  and  eternal  over  the  things 
which  have  been  left  altogether  on  one  side  by  the  religious,  or 
dismissed  as  secular.  A  single  object  of  social,  ethical,  or  eco- 
nomic endeavor  may  be  upon  occasion,  above  all  others,  the  prop- 
er object  for  the  Christian  enthusiasm  to  set  before  itself.  But 
so  surely  as  that  single  object,  or  that  single  kind  of  object,  is 
torn  from  its  relation  to  the  whole  of  life,  is  made  the  limit  of 


286  THE   INTERPRETATION   OF  RELIGION 

the  horizon,  the  absolute  tontent  of  hfe  and  goal  of  our  endeavor, 
it  loses  all  its  light  as  a  divine  ideal,  its  glory  as  an  object  upon 
which  true  religion  may  expend  itself.  Religion  cannot  be  thus 
circumscribed,  shut  in,  cut  off.  The  moment  you  limit  it  in 
this  way,  it  ceases  to  be  religion.  It  was  at  this  point  that  the 
men  of  the  elder  view  of  religion,  as  belonging  solely  to  the  inner 
life  and  the  other  world,  made  their  mistake.  We  are  in  danger 
of  making  precisely  the  same  mistake,  only  the  other  way  about. 
It  may  be  true  that  I,  as  a  Christian  man,  may  be  under  obliga- 
tion to  pour  out  my  life  for  the  bettering  of  the  economic  condi- 
tion of  the  poor.  But  if  I  am  so  carried  away  by  my  sympathy 
as  to  think,  or  to  make  those  for  whom  I  labor  think,  that  that 
better  economic  condition  of  the  poor  is  all,  or  even  a  large  part, 
of  what  is  meant  by  the  Kingdom  of  God,  then  we  are  in  danger 
of  forgetting  what  religion  is.  Then  the  pursuit  even  of  a  great 
end  becomes  narrowing,  hardening,  lowering;  the  following  of  it 
does  not  lift  us  up  in  the  old  way,  but  drags  us  and  all  men  down. 
The  thing  becomes  a  mere  fad  and  fanaticism,  and  even  the 
successful  achievement  of  it  would  leave  us  only  more  sodden 
than  we  were  before.  A  mind  sobered  by  reflection  upon  the 
experience  of  humanity  cannot  but  feel  the  infinite  pathos  of  the 
assumption  so  widely  current  among  us  that  where  reforms — 
these  or  those,  any  or  all — have  been  accomplished,  all  that  we 
mean  by  the  Kingdom  of  God  will  have  come. 

If  ever  an  age  should  have  been  cured  of  the  hallucination 
that  wealth  or  the  being  absolved  from  toil  brings  blessedness, 
it  should  be  this  age  of  ours.  Who  is  the  man  whom  wealth 
blesses?  Surely  only  the  man  who  has  something  for  which 
he  cares  more  than  he  does  for  wealth;  something  which  he  would 
not  have  sacrificed  to  gain  wealth;  something  for  which  he  uses 
wealth  now  that  it  is  gained.  Caring  most  of  all  for  that,  he 
could  be  blessed  even  should  he  lose  his  wealth.  Who  is  the 
man  whom  health  blesses?  Surely  only  that  man  who,  having 
health,  uses  it  as  a  priceless  endowment  of  the  power  for  work. 
On  any  other  basis,  the  oxen  beat  us.  But  such  a  man  as  this 
of  whom  I  speak  would  sacrifice  health  and  even  life  itself  to- 
morrow for  a  worthy  end.  Such  a  man,  if  he  lost  health,  would 
then  be  exalted  in  character  and  hallowed  and  glorified  through 
pain.     Emerson  said — "  If  a  man  will  have  too  much,  what  goes 


THE   INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION  287 

into  his  bag  comes  out  of  his  soul."  How  much  is  too  much? 
You  can  never  answer  that  question  in  dollars.  You  have  to 
know  the  man.  A  little  is  too  much  if  one  sets  his  soul  upon  it. 
In  fact,  even  the  dollars  which  a  man  never  got  have  been  too 
much  for  the  man  whose  soul  was  shriveled  through  the  passion 
for  the  getting  them.  At  the  bottom  of  our  hearts  we  all  admit 
that  for  anything  concerning  the  constitution  of  the  universe 
which  we  yet  know,  it  will  draw  much  nearer  to  being  a  God- 
forsaken world  than  it  now  is  when  all  the  courage,  patience, 
tenderness,  which  are  born  of  sorrow,  and  all  the  power  and 
majesty  of  manhood  which  come  by  conflict  and  toil,  are  gone 
out  of  it  and  the  sodden  millennium  of  the  flesh  is  come.  Never 
fear!  the  millennium  of  the  flesh  thus  isolated  from  the  kingdom 
of  the  mind  and  spirit  will  never  come.  In  every  effort  thus  to 
bring  it  in,  humanity  has  overreached  itself.  It  will  never  come, 
the  ideal  condition  of  the  outward  lot  and  life,  save  by  the  same 
steps  and  in  the  same  measure  that  the  millennium  of  the  mind 
and  spirit  come  as  well.  When  these  come  together,  then  the 
outward  condition  will  be  a  benediction  and  not  a  curse. 

For  there  is  another  thing  which  in  this  connection  we  must 
never  forget.  Into  the  things  which  we  just  now  propose  to 
storm  by  violence,  or  steal  by  sentimentality,  the  mental  toil — 
most  likely  of  whole  generations — to  discover  principles  and  learn 
how  to  apply  them  must  yet  go.  Nothing  whatsoever  can  be 
counted  gained  here  until  it  is  intellectually  valid.  The  mind  of 
man,  intent  ofttimes  upon  the  most  painful  problems,  yet  as 
problems  of  pure  science  and  as  if  there  were  no  pain,  has  worked 
out  all  the  previous  questions  in  the  issue  of  which  we,  in  modern 
civilization,  stand  in  any  way  secure.  One  marvels,  therefore, 
how  in  this  day  of  universal  praise  of  education,  it  is  as  if,  mid- 
way of  the  process  of  discovery  of  the  intellectual  basis  of  the 
changes  which  our  eager  hearts  forecast,  the  generation  had  sud- 
denly lost  patience.  It  is  as  if  men  could  not  wait  for  science, 
but  must  steal  that  good  sign  and  set  it  up  upon  their  own  imagin- 
ings, must  disregard  the  remonstrances  of  those  who  have  made 
it  their  life  business  to  try  to  find  out  what  is  the  underlying  truth 
in  these  relations.  They  must  fall  to  abusing  slow-footed,  plod- 
ding intellect  in  the  same  breath  with  which  they  have  decried 
the  ancient  faith.     In  the  long  period  of  difficult  adjustment 


288  THE   INTERPRETATION   OF   RELIGION 

which  we  have  been  passing  through,  the  disagreement  between 
the  sciences  and  faith  has  sometimes  been  assumed  to  be  a  funda- 
mental one.  But  to  have  the  whole  intellectual  endeavor  of  a 
generation  flouted  because  it  also  is  not  able  to  march  fast  enough, 
that  is  a  picturesque  experience.  We  advocates  of  religion,  so 
long  down-trodden,  are  touched  in  our  sense  of  humor  to  find 
our  old  opponents,  the  scientific  people,  now  somewhat  in  the 
same  case.  It  looks  as  if  we  were  going  to  be  pungently  reminded, 
from  this  side  as  well,  of  the  wholeness  of  man's  life,  of  the  in- 
tegrity of  scientific  processes,  of  the  inviolable  nature  of  evidence, 
of  the  impossibility  of  any  real  advance  of  man  into  a  realm  to 
which  the  sober,  patient  study  of  the  facts  and  cautious  induc- 
tion from  the  facts,  the  brave  and  often  costly  experiment  in 
the  application  of  the  facts,  have  not  prepared  the  way. 

Nothing  that  is  not  intellectually  sound  can  possibly  stand. 
Nothing  which  is  not  economically  right,  socially  just  and  advan- 
tageous for  all  concerned,  can  in  the  long  run  by  any  possibility 
prevail.  And  concerning  much  that  with  passionate  zeal  and  hot 
heart  we  do  desire  for  others,  or  demand  for  ourselves,  just  that 
it  is  which  has  got  to  be  worked  out.  The  question  is  whether 
they  are  sound.  You  say  that  the  Church  must  show  sympathy. 
By  all  means!  but  sympathy  is  not  the  only  quality  requisite  to 
leadership.  Upon  occasion  it  means  more  to  leadership  to  be 
right  than  even  to  be  sympathetic.  We  do  not  think  so  meanly 
of  our  fellows  as  to  believe  that  any  great  majority  of  them  want 
coddling.  They  do  not  know  what  is  right.  We  do  not  any  of 
us  know  altogether  what  is  right.  But  the  instant  we  go  within 
ourselves  we  know  that  many  things  which  are  now  being  held 
out  to  people  in  the  name  of  religion  and  to  impress  upon  them 
the  notion  that  we  are  sympathetic  are  not  right  and  not  wise. 
They  are  not  intellectually  sound,  and  they  are  not  morally  for 
the  best.  They  refer  too  much,  if  not  wholly,  to  rights,  present 
advantages,  outward  gains,  ease,  and  escape  from  toils  and  pains. 
They  have  not  that  note  which  every  man  knows  to  be  true, 
that  note  which,  believe  me,  this  age  and  land  of  ours  is  waiting^ 
to  hear,  and  knows  that  it  ought  to  hear  of  all  places  on  earth 
in  the  church  of  Christ;  and  which,  when  it  hears,  it  obeys. 

Harvard  University, 
May  7,  1910. 


XXII 

THE  THEORY   OF  PLEASURE 

Harry  Norman  Gardiner 

The  word  "pleasure"  is  ambiguous.  We  call  a  man's 
"pleasures"  the  things  he  takes  pleasure  in,  usually  his  amuse- 
ments. Again,  "pleasure"  is  used  to  denote  the  whole  of  a  con- 
crete pleasurable  experience.  In  psychology  the  term  has  a  more 
restricted  meaning.  A  distinction  is  drawn  between  the  other 
factors  of  the  experience  and  the  feeling  of  its  pleasantness. 
"Pleasure"  then  denotes  this  feeling,  an  aspect,  moment  or  ele- 
ment of  the  pleasant  experience.  The  distinction  is  in  certain  re- 
spects important.  It  is  a  question,  for  example,  in  the  discussion 
of  hedonistic  theories  of  ethics,  whether  pleasures  differ  in  qual- 
ity, and  so  afford  a  ground  of  preference,  or  only  in  degree. 
Clearly  if  the  question  relates  to  concrete  pleasures,  the  answer 
is  plain :  the  pleasures  differ  in  quality  so  far  as  there  is  any  quali- 
tative difference  in  their  constituents,  and  this  difference  may  be 
a  valid  ground  of  preference.  But  if  the  question  relates  to  the 
mere  pleasantness  felt  in  the  different  experiences,  abstraction 
being  made  of  the  other  elements  of  the  content,  the  answer  is 
not  so  easy,  for  mere  pleasantness  is  unanalysable  and  different 
instances  of  it  are  difficult  to  compare;  hence  the  conflict  of 
opinion  on  the  subject  among  trained  observers.  Presumably 
a  decision  can  be  reached,  if  at  all,  only  from  considerations  that 
are  indirect.  Again,  it  is  sometimes  asserted  that  pleasure  is 
always  the  object  of  desire.  But  this,  if  mere  pleasantness  is 
meant,  is  evidently  false,  for  it  is  only  in  the  rarest  cases  that  that 
is  thought  of  as  an  object  at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  if  concrete 
pleasurable  experience  is  meant,  the  assertion  becomes  almost 
a  truism,  for  we  certainly  desire  an  experience  fulfilling  the  desire 
and  so  far  pleasant,  though  not  necessarily  so  in  other  respects. 

289 


290  THE  THEORY  OF  PLEASURE 

Psychology,  then,  understands  by  "pleasure"  the  feeling  of 
pleasantness,  of  being  pleased.  This  feeling  cannot  be  defined, 
it  can  only  be  felt.  But  its  psychological  relations,  the  conditions 
of  its  genesis,  its  function  in  the  mental  and  bodily  economy  can 
be  studied  and  speculated  about,  and  it  is  these  which  consti- 
tute what  we  call  its  "nature,"  and  which  form  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  psychological  theory. 

The  interest  of  such  a  theory  is  obvious  from  the  place  occu- 
pied by  pleasure  and  its  antithesis,  displeasure,  in  human  life. 
It  is  doubtful  if  there  is  a  single  moment  of  our  waking  conscious- 
ness in  which  one  or  the  other  of  these  feelings  is  altogether  ab- 
sent. It  may  indeed  be  that  a  given  object  appears  to  us  as 
relatively,  or  altogether,  indifferent;  it  is  certainly  true  that  we 
are  not  all  the  time  rejoicing  or  grieving,  nor  much  of  the  time 
reflectively  thinking  of  how  pleased,  or  how  displeased,  we  feel; 
we  may  hardly  be  aware  that  we  are  feeling  at  all.  But  it  is  ex- 
tremely doubtful  whether,  if  we  take  pains  to  examine  the  matter, 
we  shall  not  find  either  in  the  whole  or  in  some  aspect  of  our  ex- 
perience at  a  given  time  a  degree  of  satisfaction  or  dissatisfaction, 
of  being  well  or  ill  at  ease,  of  liking  or  disliking,  in  a  word,  of 
feeling  pleased  or  displeased.  There  can  at  any  rate  be  no  doubt 
concerning  the  universality  of  the  experiences  to  which  these 
feelings  attach  themselves.  There  is  no  kind  of  experience  which 
may  not  excite  them;  sensations  and  ideas,  emotions  and  actions, 
states  and  functions,  things  present,  past  and  to  come — every- 
thing that  can  in  any  way  enter  into  consciousness  at  all  is  capa- 
ble of  affecting  it  in  one  or  the  other  of  these  modes.  These 
feelings  have  also  a  remarkable  range  of  intensity,  now  pervasive 
and  overwhelming,  now  restricted  and  more  subconscious  than 
noticed.  The  close  connection  of  the  two  has  often  been  com- 
mented on;  the  keenest  pleasure  seems  often  akin  to,  or  to  be 
mixed  with,  pain,  and  there  is  frequently  a  very  rapid  transition 
from  the  one  state  to  the  other.  The  influence  of  these  feelings, 
moreover,  on  the  course  of  mental  life  can  hardly  be  exaggerated. 
They  affect  our  sentiments,  beliefs,  judgments  and  conduct. 
The  principal  reason  for  this  influence  appears  to  be  that  they 
register  for  us,  not  indeed  the  reflective,  but  the  immediate 
values  of  our  experiences  as  agreeable  or  not  agreeable.  We 
naturally  like  what  is  pleasant  and  dislike  what  is  unpleasant. 


THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE  291 

What  pleases  us  is  in  so  far  good  and  accepted,  what  displeases 
us  is  in  so  far  evil  and  avoided.  True,  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
pleasure  in  pain.  This  phenomenon  may  be  pathological,  but 
it  may  also  be  an  incident  in  the  highest  form  of  spiritual  life. 
Christians  have  obeyed  the  injunction  to  "  rejoice  in  tribulation  '* 
in  both  ways.  In  either  way  the  phenomenon  is  due  to  special 
conditions  and  proves,  not  that  pain  or  unpleasant  experience 
is  in  itself  pleasant  and  an  object  of  liking,  but  only  that,  under 
certain  circumstances,  it  may  excite  pleasure.  On  the  other 
hand  Antisthenes  the  Cynic  expressed  his  abhorrence  of  "pleas- 
ure" by  saying  that  he  would  rather  be  mad  than  pleased.  But 
this  was  a  judgment  of  moral  reflection  and  implies  what  we  are 
asserting,  namely,  the  natural  tendency  to  regard  pleasure  as  a 
good,  a  tendency  which  Antisthenes  found  it  important  to  resist, 
especially  when  "pleasure"  was  identified  with  the  gratification 
of  the  sensuous  appetites.  The  Cynic  doubtless  took  pleasure  in 
his  Cynicism.  The  natural  identification  of  pleasure  and  good 
has  been  the  absorbing  theme  of  ethics.  Religion  deals  with 
the  same  subject  in  connection  with  ideas  of  sin  and  grace,  of 
rewards  and  punishments,  and  of  the  future  life.  And  both  re- 
ligion and  ethics,  while  often  condemning  pleasure  as  a  snare 
and  the  love  of  it  as  a  sin,  nevertheless  recognise  its  claims. 
The  rigoristic  Kant  admits  it  into  the  ultimate  ethical  ideal, 
the  Puritan  preacher  extols  it  as  it  exists  forevermore  at  the  right 
hand  of  God. 

It  is  not  strange  that  a  feeling  so  universal  and  significant 
should  early  have  become  an  object  of  scientific  reflection.  Dis- 
cussion took  its  rise  prominently  in  the  ethical  schools  of  Greece 
in  connection  with  the  assertion  and  denial  of  the  doctrine  of 
hedonism.*  Aristippus,  identifying  pleasure,  good  and  utility, 
made  definite  what  Socrates  had  left  vague  in  his  conception  of 
happiness.  The  Cyrenaics  joined  to  this  evaluation  of  pleasure 
as  the  good  or  end  of  life  a  physiological  doctrine  of  its  nature: 
pleasure,  they  said,  is  a  smooth  or  gentle  "motion,"  in  con- 

*  There  were  earlier  speculations.  Heraclitus,  e.  g.,  connected  pleasure 
with  the  soul's  humidity;  Diogenes  ot  Apollonia,  with  aeration  of  the  blood. 
The  general  tendency  was  to  regard  pleasure  as  related  to  suitable  organic 
conditions,  pain  to  their  disturbance.  But  these  early  speculations  were 
sporadic  and  led  to  nothing. 


292  THE  THEORY  OF  PLEASURE 

trast  to  pain,  which  is  hard  or  rough,  and  in  distinction  from 
the  intermediate  state,  which  is  either  one  of  rest  or  a  motion  too 
shght  to  be  perceived.  As  motion  it  is  something  positive,  as 
gentle  agreeable  to  nature,  but  it  allows  of  no  differences  except 
of  degree.  Antisthenes  and  the  Cynics,  in  repudiating  hedon- 
ism, conceived  of  pleasure  as  something  merely  negative,  the  ces- 
sation of  pain;  some  even  declared  that  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  pleasure,  but  only  its  illusory  appearance.* 

The  questions  thus  raised  needed  profounder  investigation, 
and  this  they  received  first  from  Plato  and  afterwards  from 
Aristotle.  In  his  estimate  of  pleasure  as  related  to  the  end  of 
life  Plato  varies.  In  the  early  Protagoras  Socrates  is  represented 
as  arguing  on  the  basis  of  the  assumption  "that  the  pleasant 
is  the  good  and  the  painful  evil."f  Know^ledge  has  then  the 
function  of  weighing  and  balancing  pleasures  and  pains  to  the 
end  that  the  conduct  of  life  may  lead  to  the  greatest  sum  of 
pleasure.  But  in  the  Gorgias  the  pleasant  and  the  good  are 
sharply  contrasted,  and  the  advocate  of  pleasure  being  forced 
to  admit  the  distinction  between  good  pleasures  and  bad,  is 
brought  to  the  conclusion  that  pleasure  is  to  be  sought  for  the 
sake  of  the  good,  and  not  the  good  for  the  sake  of  pleasure. 
Neither  view  expresses  the  full  Platonic  doctrine.  The  first  in- 
deed is  merely  a  stage  in  the  defense  of  the  Socratic  thesis  of  the 
unification  of  the  virtues  by  knowledge  as  against  the  sophistic 
assertion  of  their  multifariousness,  and  may  possibly  be  regarded 
as  an  assumption  common  to  the  disputants  and  sufficiently 
near  the  doctrine  of  the  historical  Socrates  to  be  plausible.  But 
the  opposition  of  pleasure  and  good  in  the  Gorgias  was  also  not 
final.  In  the  Republic,  and  more  definitely  in  the  Philcbus,  the 
relations  of  the  two  are  more  carefully  considered,  the  conclusion 
being  reached  that  pleasure,  qualified  as  to  its  kind,  is  an  essential 
ingredient  of  the  highest  form  of  life,  the  finally  good  life  being 
one  in  which  wisdom,  pleasure  and  truth  are  symmetrically 
combined. J 

The  considerations  which  lead  to  this  result  are  partly  logical 
and  metaphysical,  partly  psychological,  the  different  points  of 
view  never  being  sharply  distinguished  and  the  ethical  interest 

*  Plato,  Phileb.,  44  B,  51  A.     Cf.  Zeller.  Phil.  d.  Gr.  II,  i\  p.  308,  n.  1. 
t  Prot.,  358.  %  Phileb.,  G4  f. 


THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE  293 

predominating  throughout.  An  important  section  of  the  Phi- 
lehus  (12-16)  treats  dialectically  of  the  relations  of  the  one  to 
the  many  in  the  realm  of  ideas,  the  object  being  to  indicate  the 
possibility  and  necessity  of  a  division  of  the  one  thing  called 
'pleasure"  into  its  kinds.  Pleasure  in  general  is  defined  as  a 
restoration  of  the  natural  organic  harmony,  the  dissolution  or 
destruction  of  which  is  pain.*  This  definition,  like  that  of  the 
Cyrenaics,  conceives  of  pleasure  as  a  positive  organic  process, 
though,  of  course,  for  Plato  the  feeling  of  the  process  is  in  the 
souljf  but  a  process  of  repair,  of  replenishment,  conditioned, 
therefore,  on  an  antecedent  disturbance,  the  feeling  of  which  is 
Dainful  The  normal  condition  would  be  one  of  calm,  neither 
pleasant  nor  unpleasant,  a  state  ascribed  to  the  gods.  Plato 
is  ever  aware  of  the  close  connection  of  pleasure  and  pain,  two 
bodies,  as  he  says,  with  a  single  head.f  The  conditions  of 
pleasure  and  pain  are  more  precisely  defined  in  the  Timmus.^ 
There  we  learn  that  it  is  not  any  and  every  disturbance  of  har- 
mony which  is  painful  and  its  restitution  pleasant,  but  that  the 
respective  movements  must  have  a  certain  degree  of  intensity  and 
suddenness.  These  qualifications  enable  Plato  to  bring  under 
the  terms  of  his  theory  dissolutions  which  are  painless  because  no 
resistance  is  offered  by  the  particles,  and  restorations  which  are 
without  pleasure  because  the  process  is  too  gradual,  and — most 
important  for  the  classification  and  appreciation  of  pleasures — 
pleasures  like  sweet  smells  which  have  no  antecedent  pain,  the 
explanation  being  that  the  " withdrawings  and  emptyings"  are 
too  gradual  to  be  noticed,  while  the  corresponding  replenish- 
ments are  great  and  sudden.  A  little  later  in  the  dialogue  he 
accounts  for  the  euphoria  which,  as  he  alleges,  attends  death 
from  old  age,  contrasting  with  the  painfulness  of  death  from 
accident  or  disease,  on  the  general  principle  that  what  is  accord- 
ing to  nature  is  pleasant,  what  is  contrary,  painful,  without  show- 
ing, what  might  perhaps  have  been  for  him  not  easy,  that  that, 
too,  was  a  case  of  organic  replenishment. 

The  above  definition  of  pleasure,  though  stated  in  the  Phl- 
lebus  in  general  terms,  applies  directly,  it  would  seem,  only  to 

*  Phileb.,  31  E  ff.;  cf.  25  E  f.,  Cratyl,  419  C. 

t  Tim.,  64  B,  Laws,  673  A,  Phileb.,  33  D,  Rep.,  462  C,  584  C. 

t  Phoedo,  60  B.  §  Tim.,  64  f. 


294  THE   THEORY   OF  PLEASURE 

bodily  pleasures,  and  Plato  held  that  some  pleasures  were  only 
of  the  soul.  But  he  uses  the  general  conception,  either  directly 
or  analogically,  in  establishing  the  distinctions  required  by  his 
theory  of  the  sort  of  pleasure  worthy  of  admission  into  the  ideally 
good  life.  These  are  the  distinctions  of  "pure"  and  "mixed" 
and  of  "true"  and  "false"  pleasures.  By  a  "pure"  pleasure 
Plato  means  one  free  from  pain,  either  as  an  antecedent  condi- 
tion or  as  a  necessary  concomitant;  if  it  is  conditioned  on  or  com- 
bined with  pain,  it  is  "mixed."  He  finds,  accordingly,  that  most 
sense-pleasures  are  "mixed,"  though  some  few  are  "pure"  in 
the  manner  already  explained  in  the  case  of  sweet  odors.  Many 
mental  pleasures  are  also  "mixed,"  for  they  may  be  combined 
with  bodily  disturbance  or  depend  on  the  fulfilling  of  a  desire, 
which  implies  the  unpleasantness  of  want.  But  characteris- 
tically and  for  the  most  part  "pure"  pleasures  are  of  the  mind. 
Now  Plato  is  probably  right  in  recognising  mixed  states  of  feel- 
ing, that  is,  states  in  which  there  is  a  feeling  at  once  of  pleasant- 
ness and  unpleasantness.  "Our  sincerest  laughter  w^ith  some 
pain  is  fraught."  But  he  unites  this  psychological  doctrine  with 
the  questionable  assumption  that  pleasure  which  is  won  at  the 
cost  of  pain  is  itself  contaminated  by  the  pain  and  therefore  of 
an  inferior  order.  This  assumption  is  developed  in  considering 
the  pardy  coincident  distinction  of  "true"  and  "false"  pleasures. 
Pleasures  are  "false,"  he  explains,  when  they  import  a  wrong 
judgment  regarding  their  objects,  their  quality  or  amount,  or 
their  intrinsic  constitution.  Here  again  Plato  is  on  good  psycho- 
logical ground  so  far  as  he  calls  attention  to  the  illusions  to  which 
we  are  all  subject  regarding  the  sources  and  attributes  of  our  af- 
fective states.*  But  he  regards  the  illusion  as  affecting  not  a 
mere  attribute,  but  the  very  essence  of  the  feeling;  we  suppose 
ourselves  to  be  enjoying  pure  pleasure,  when  in  reality  we  are 
experiencing  a  mixed  state  of  feeling,  pleasure  infected  with  pain. 
And  this,  he  holds,  is  more  especially  the  case  where  the  pleasure, 
as  in  sensual  delight,  is  intense.  Such  pleasure  he  therefore 
disparages,  not  only  as  morally  dangerous,  but  as  pleasure. 
He  maintains  that  "  a  small  pleasure,  or  a  small  amount  of  pleas- 

*  Phileb.,  36  C  ff.  Cf.  for  a  recent  treatment  of  this  theme  Ribot,  Prob- 
Ibmes  de  psychologie  affective  (1910),  pp.  147-170  ("Sur  une  forme  d'illusion 
affective  "). 


\  THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE  295 

ure,  if  pure  and  unalloyed  with  pain,  is  always  pleasanter  (as 
well  as  truer  and  fairer)  than  a  great  pleasure,  or  a  great  amount 
of  pleasure,  of  another  kind."*  As  only  "pure"  pleasure  is 
"  true,"  or  strictly,  pleasure,  it  alone  is  admitted  as  a  constituent 
of  the  good,  which  thus  includes  for  Plato  some  simple  sense- 
pleasures  and  some  of  an  analogous  sort,  but  pre-eminently 
the  pleasures  of  knowledge.  In  the  Republic  the  conception  of 
the  greater  reality  and  truth  of  mental  and  moral  pleasures  is 
supported  by  the  metaphysical  argument  that  what  is  filled  by 
the  more  real  being  is  more  really  filled  than  what  is  filled  by  the 
less.f  We  have  seen  Plato  explaining,  in  accordance  with  the 
terms  of  his  theory,  the  painless  pleasures  of  sense  by  the  unsup- 
ported hypothesis  of  a  gradual  emptying  and  a  great  and  rapid 
replenishment.  Here  the  theory  appears  in  a  form  which  tran- 
scends all  psychological  boundaries  under  the  analogy  of  a  "  fill- 
ing" of  the  soul  with  reality.  It  needs  scarcely  to  be  remarked 
that  the  conclusion  as  to  the  superior  "truth"  and  "reality"  of 
certain  pleasures  is  also  extra-psychological.  The  intrinsic 
quality  of  pleasure,  whether  as  such  or  in  any  respect  good  or 
bad,  can  only  be  precisely  as  it  is  felt.  Under  what  conditions  it 
is  experienced  with,  or  without,  pain  is  a  psychological  question 
to  be  settled  by  induction;  but  whether  it  is  always  better  and  to 
be  preferred  when  unconditioned  by  or  unmixed  with  pain  is 
not  strictly  a  psychological  question  at  all,  but  a  matter  of  appre- 
ciation to  be  determined  by  other  considerations  than  that  of 
mere  "purity." 

Aristotle's  doctrine  of  pleasure  takes  a  broader  and  more  ob- 
jective sun'ey  of  the  facts.  At  the  outset  he  frees  himself  from 
the  ambiguities  attaching  to  the  conception  of  pleasure  as  "mo- 
tion" and  places  himself  squarely  on  psychological  ground  by 
declaring  it  to  be,  like  the  act  of  vision  or  a  mathematical  point, 
whole  and  indivisible  and  all  at  once.  In  particular  he  rejects 
the  Platonic  notion  that  it  is  a  process  of  replenishment,  regarding 
that  notion  as  suggested  by  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  nutrition, 
but  as  inapplicable  to  many  other  pleasures  which  are  not  pre- 
ceded by  a  sense  of  want.|     Positively,  his  own  view  is  that 

*  Phileb.,  51  ff.  t  Rep.,  IX,  583  ff. 

t  Eth.  Nic,  X,  cc.  3  and  4.  In  Rhet.  I,  11,  1369,  b  33  we  find  pleasure 
defined  in  terms  strongly  reminiscent  of  Plato  as  "a  certain  movement  of 


296  THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE 

pleasure  is  a  concomitant  of  the  normal  exercise  of  the  faculties. 
The  free  and  unimpeded  exercise,  or  functional  realisation,  of  any 
natural  capacity  and  of  the  vital  energies  in  their  totality  is 
pleasant;  experienced  restriction,  unpleasant.  The  greatest 
pleasure  relatively  to  a  given  function  is  obtained  when  the 
faculty  is  at  its  best  and  the  fullest  scope  is  afforded  by  the 
stimulus  to  its  exercise.  This  is  one  ground  for  the  superiority 
of  the  pleasures  of  the  intellect  as  compared  with  those  of  sense. 
In  the  latter  the  ratio  of  stimulus  to  capacity  is  limited:  transcend 
the  limit  and  the  exercise  is  impaired;  but  in  thought,  although 
owing  to  natural  conditions  its  exercise  cannot  be  continued  in- 
definitely, activity  increases  and  the  faculty  is  more  fully  realised 
with  every  advance  in  the  intellectual  character  of  its  objects. 
Hence  so  far  is  Aristotle  from  agreeing  with  Plato  in  thinking 
it  unworthy  of  the  gods  to  ascribe  to  them  pleasure,  that  he  con- 
ceives of  the  Deity  as  experiencing  in  the  uninterrupted  exer- 
cise of  perfectly   fulfilled    intellection   highest   and   completest 

joy.* 

Now  this  doctrine  which  connects  pleasure  with  the  normal 
exercise  of  faculty  undoubtedly  accords  with  a  far  larger  number 
of  facts  than  that  which  makes  it  consist  in  a  process  of  restora- 
tion of  a  disturbed  organic  harmony.  But  does  it  fit  in  with  all 
the  facts?  There  are  pleasures  of  activity,  certainly,  many  of 
them;  but  there  are  also  pleasures  of  recreation  and  repose. 
And  there  are  "pathological"  pleasures  which  appear  to  contra- 
dict the  assumption  that  pleasure  is  always  a  symptom  of  "  nor- 
mal" activity  and,  therefore,  an  index  of  welfare.  How  does 
Aristotle  deal  with  such  cases?  Well,  he  notices  them  and  sug- 
gests explanations.  He  tells  us,  for  instance,  that  "  all  conditions 
of  ease,  comfort  or  inattention,  amusements,  recreations  and 
sleep "  are  pleasures,  the  reason  being  that  they  fulfil  and  express 
either  natural  or  acquired  tendencies  and  conform  to  the  general 

the  soul  and  a  sudden  and  sensible  settling  into  the  normal  state."  But, 
however  this  is  to  be  interpreted,  it  cannot  be  set  against  the  express  rejection 
in  the  Ethics  of  the  idea  that  pleasure  is  a  Klvrja-is.  The  definition,  which  is 
introduced  by  viroKelffdu  ijfxTv,  may  be  taken  as  an  assumption  sufficiently 
accurate  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  In  the  sequel  the  emphasis  is  on  the  normal 
and  natural  conditions  of  the  affection.  See  Cope,  Introduction  to  Aristotle's 
Rhetoric  (18G7),  App.  D  to  Bk.  I. 

*  E.  N.,  X,  7;  Met.  12  (A),  7,  1072  b  14  f. 


THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE  297 

conditions  of  life.*  This  is  clearly  a  modification  of  the  original 
doctrine  in  that  it  includes,  along  with  the  actual  realisation  of 
faculty,  the  realisation  of  tendencies  incidental  thereto.  But 
abnormal  tendencies  may  be  acquired  and  their  fulfilment,  on 
the  theory,  must  also  yield  pleasure.  Pleasure,  therefore,  will 
not  be  in  all  cases  an  index  of  the  normal  fulfilment  of  vital  en- 
ergies. But  it  may  still  be  "natural"  in  one  sense  of  the  term, 
for  habit  is  second  nature.  The  difficulty  is  to  define  the  "nor- 
mal." Aristotle  does  not  attempt  to  formally  define  it,  but 
assumes  an  ayadbi;  ctv-qp  as  the  standard  and  declares  that  base 
pleasures,  like  perverted  tastes  in  disease,  are  not  pleasures 
"except  to  corrupt  men."t  This  is  his  version  of  Plato's  "  false" 
pleasures. 

Aristotle  holds  that  pleasures  differ  in  kind  according  to  the 
differences  in  the  faculties  whose  exercises  they  complete,  and 
this  view  he  supports  by  observing  the  facilitating  effect  of  the 
pleasure  attending  any  kind  of  activity  on  that  kind  and  its 
inhibitory  effect  on  rival  activities. J  They  thus  differ  in  purity, 
for  sight  is  "purer"  than  touch,  hearing  than  smell  and  intel- 
lection than  any  sense.  Independently  of  this  distinction,  which 
refers  not  to  freedom  from  pain,  but  from  "matter,"§  Aris- 
totle also  recognises,  with  Plato,  "mixed"  states  of  feeling,  the 
most  conspicuous  illustrations  of  which  are  found  in  the  emotions. 
He  further  notes  the  differences  of  pleasure  relative  to  the  total 
life-functions  of  one  species  of  animal  as  compared  with  another 
and  the  individual  differences  among  members  of  the  same  spe- 
cies, using  these  facts  as  a  background  for  the  conception  of  a 
normal  life-function  for  man. 

Besides  its  relation  to  the  cognitive  powers,  pleasure  has  im- 
portant relations  to  conation  and  conduct,  the  outstanding 
features  of  which  Aristotle  has  drawn  with  a  firm  and  sure  touch. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  go  into  details.  The  point  of  ethical  inter- 
est is  that  while  pleasure  consolidates  or  suppresses  tendencies, 
it  is  not  itself  a  criterion  of  the  tendencies  desirable  to  cultivate, 
nor  does  it  show  how  the  different  tendencies  of  our  nature  are 

*  Rhet.  I,  11;  cf.  Prohl.,  878  b  11:  "the  way  to  what  is  natural  is  sweet,  if 
only  it  be  perceived." 

t  E.  N.,  X,  5,  10  f.  t  lb.,  5,  1-5. 

§  See  Stewart,  Xotes  on  the  Nicomachean  Ethics,  II,  p.  435. 


298  THE   THEORY  OF   PLEASURE 

to  be  organised  into  a  perfect  life.  Life  consists  essentially  for 
Aristotle  in  the  continued  renewal  and  fulfilment  of  functions. 
Pleasure  and  life  seem  constantly  conjoined,  as  the  theory, 
partly  supported  by  this  observation,  requires;*  pain  marks  a 
disturbance,  an  interruption.  But  pleasure  is  not  the  realisa- 
tion of  any  vital  function.  It  is  not  ivepyeia,  but  iv  ivepyeia. 
There  is  no  faculty  of  pleasure  in  the  exercise  of  which  life  finds 
even  a  partial,  much  less  its  complete  fulfilment.  Pleasure  is  an 
added  perfection,  a  supervenient  grace,  "like  the  bloom  of 
youth. "t  If,  therefore,  the  end  of  life  is  the  fulfilment  of  life, 
pleasure  will  be  a  concomitant  of  it,  but  not  the  end  itself. 
And  if  the  end  of  human  life  is  the  realisation  of  man's  specifi- 
cally human  functions,  we  must  seek  it  in  the  fullest  expression 
throughout  its  whole  extent  of  man's  rational  nature.  This  is 
"  good  life,"  a  state  of  evSaifMovia,  pleasant,  but  not  '^Bovi].  This 
is  Aristode's  reply  to  hedonism. 

Little  of  importance  was  added  by  antiquity  to  the  psychology 
of  pleasure  except  perhaps  the  teaching  of  Epicurus,  which 
Cicero  and  others  found  an  object  of  ridicule,  that  the  calm, 
but  fixed  and  stable  (^KaTa(n7]fiaTLKrj)  pleasure  of  the  memory 
of  days  spent  in  the  study  of  philosophy  was  capable  of  over- 
coming the  acutest  bodily  sufl'ering.  This,  however,  was  not  a 
theory  of  its  ultimate  nature.  The  Stoics  made  'qhovq  one  of  the 
four  principal  "passions,"  which  they  defined,  now  as  excessive 
impulses,  now  as  false  judgments  or  perversions  of  reason.  This 
uncertainty  of  classification  prevailed,  pleasure  and  pain  being 
reckoned  now  with  the  "active"  and  now  with  the  "cognitive" 
powers,  till  Sulzer,  Tetens  and  Kant  set  up  the  present  traditional 
tripartite  division  of  the  mental  faculties  and  assigned  pleasant- 
ness and  unpleasantness  to  the  distinct  division  of  "feeling." 
The  wholesale  condemnation  of  r)hovri  did  not  prevent  the  Stoics 
from  admitting  pleasurable  states  among  the  approved  disposi- 
tions, e.  g.,  repyfrL'i,  wholesome  pleasure  in  the  use  of  the  higher 
senses,  and  evc^poavvr},  bonhomie,  or  delight  in  social  intercourse. 

*  E.  N.,  X,  4,  7. 

t  Ih.,  4,  8.  It  apparently  conflicts  with  this  that  pleasure  is  described  in 
E.  N .,  VII,  12,  as  an  unimpeded  iv^pyeia  riji  Kara  (piia-iv  ^|ews.  It  is  sufficient 
to  remark  that  Bk.  VII  (with  V  and  VI)  is  in  all  probability  derived  from  the 
Ethics  of  Eudemus.     See  Stewart,  op.  cit.,  II,  pp.  218  ff. 


THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE  299 

But  they  had  no  theory  of  pleasantness  as  such.  Thus  the  theo- 
ries of  Plato  and  Aristotle  stand  out  as  typical  and  representative. 
And  they  have  remained  so  not  only  for  antiquity,  but  to  a 
large  extent  for  the  history  of  opinion  on  the  subject  down  to  the 
present  time.  Hamilton  is  not  altogether  wide  of  the  mark  when 
he  classifies  all  conceptions  of  pleasure  as  either  Platonic  or 
Aristotelian,  as  repeating  with  various  modifications  the  idea 
that  it  is  either  connected  with  the  restoration  of  equilibrium  or  a 
concomitant  and  sign  of  unimpeded  activity.* 

It  is  no  part  of  our  present  purpose  to  trace  the  history  of  the 
modern  doctrine.  We  turn  rather  at  once  to  the  more  recent 
phases  of  the  discussion  and,  confronting  that  with  the  ancient, 
enquire  in  what  respects  our  knowledge  has  been  advanced  and 
our  insight  developed.  Now  there  are  at  least  three  things 
characterising  the  present  state  of  the  psychology  of  the  affec- 
tions which  offer  a  favorable  comparison.  First,  its  strictly 
empirical  attitude:  it  seeks  to  study  the  facts,  to  discover  their 
causes  and  effects  and  to  build  up  a  theory  of  their  conditions, 
relations  and  general  significance  in  life  as  far  as  possible  with- 
out farti  pris.  It  is,  therefore,  no  longer  controlled  by  ethical, 
metaphysical  or  other  practical  or  theoretical  interests.  It  is 
not  free  from  presuppositions,  nor  even  altogether  from  hinder- 
ing prejudices,  but  it  has  become  extremely  critical  of  possible 
sources  of  error  and  extremely  suspicious  of  the  invasion  into 
its  territory  of  ideas  not  derived  from  the  accredited  results 
or  working  hypotheses  of  recognised  science.f  Secondly,  its 
interpretations  are  aided  by  the  total  outcome  of  its  own  discipline, 
so  that,  for  example,  it  is  no  longer  concerned  with  the  relation 
of  an  affection  to  our  "  faculties,"  but  only  to  the  movement  and 
organisation  of  our  functioning,  empirically  conditioned,  life, 
as  well  as  by  the  positive  knowledge  and  guiding  ideas  furnished 
by  the  modern  advances  of  the  biological  sciences.  It  is  charac- 
terised, in  the  third  place,  by  a  rich  development  of  methods  of 
investigation,  largely  experimental.     In  a  recent  article  Kiilpe 

*  Hamilton,  Lectures  o«  Metaphysics,  II,  p.  444  ff. 

t  As  an  illustration  of  the  strictly  empirical,  critical  spirit  of  modern  enquiry 
we  may  refer  to  Ribot's  demantl  that  in  studying  pleasure  we  free  ourselves 
fiom  the  confusing  prejudice  that  pleasure  is  the  "  contrary  "  of  pain;  op.  cit., 
p.  127  ("Sur  la  nature  du  plaisir  "). 


300  THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE 

distinguishes  six  classes  of  methods,  enumerating  under  each  a 
variety  of  elementary  methods,  in  one  case,  that  of  registering 
the  reactions,  as  many  as  fourteen.* 

The  meagreness  of  positive  results  obtained  from  all  this  ex- 
perimental research  is,  however,  it  must  be  sadly  confessed, 
exceedingly  disappointing.  We  have  learned  a  little  about  the 
relation  of  intensity  of  stimulus  to  intensity  of  feeling,  and  know, 
for  example,  that  increasing  the  stimulus  adds  to  the  displeasure 
of  an  unpleasant  impression,  but  does  not  necessarily  increase 
the  pleasure  of  a  pleasant  one;  and  similar  relations  hold  with 
repetition  and  continuance  of  the  impression.  But  all  this  we 
know,  if  not  precisely,  from  every-day  experience.  We  have  also 
discovered  that  pleasure,  when  obtained  under  the  simplest 
experimental  conditions,  characteristically  "expresses"  itself 
in  movements  of  the  vital  organs:  the  pulse,  for  example,  is 
strengthened  and  retarded.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  interpret  the 
phenomena  and  many  of  the  results  of  this  sort  obtained  by 
different  investigators  are  conflicting  and  the  suspicion  which 
attaches  to  certain  instruments  of  measurement,  e.  g.,  the  ergo- 
graph  and  dynamometer,  which  were  at  one  time  supposed  to 
show  that  pleasure  increased,  while  pain  decreased,  the  vital 
energy,  at  least  temporarily,  is  extended  by  many  to  the  whole 
method  of  expression,  at  least  when  employed  apart  from  the 
introspection  required  by  the  method  of  impression.  Meanwhile 
many  problems,  capable  of  experimental  study,  press  for  solution. 
What,  for  instance,  is  the  exact  relation  of  pleasure  and  dis- 
pleasure to  facility  and  arrest?  Does  pleasure  always  attend 
unimpeded  activity?  How  about  the  "res  severa  verum  gaudi- 
um"  and  the  joy  of  struggle?  What  is  its  relation  to  attention 
and  interest?  Scores  of  such  questions  rise  up  to  remind  the 
psychologist  how  much  this  department  of  his  science  lags  be- 
hind every  other  in  definite  achievement. 

Contrasting  with  this  meagreness  in  positive  results  we  have 
a  luxuriant  variety  of  conflicting  hypotheses.  Opinions  differ 
even  as  to  the  kind  of  mental  fact  we  are  here  dealing  with,  for 
while  all  call  it  a  "feeling"  or  "affection"  and  most  assert  a 
generic  difference  between  that  and  other  aspects  of  the  mental 

*  0.  Kiilpe,  Pour  la  psychologic  des  sentiments.  J.  de  psych,  norm,  et 
path.,  VII,  pp.  1-13.     1910. 


THE   THEORY   OF   PLEASURE  301 

life,  some  hold  it  to  be  a  general  "attribute"  of  consciousness 
(e.  g.,  Marshall),  some  a  unique  "element"  (Kiilpe,  Titchener), 
while  others,  finding  no  clear  criteria  by  which  to  mark  off  feel- 
ing from  sensation,  declare  it  to  be  a  kind  of  sensation,  either 
organic,  as  c.  g.  a  sort  of  diffused  tickling  (Bourdon),  or  central, 
a  form  of  cerebral  coenaesthesia  (Stumpf).  This  last  view  claims 
support  from  the  analogy  with  bodily  pain,  for  which  special 
nerves  have  been  discovered,  and  also  from  a  certain  localisa- 
tion in  sexual  pleasure.  But  its  opponents  point  in  refutation 
to  the  absence  of  any  evidence  for  special  organs  of  pleasure  and 
explain  so-called  bodily  pleasures  and  pains  as  sensations  mark- 
edly affective  in  quality  or  effect.  A  broader  theory  (Baldwin's) 
holds  that  pleasure  and  pain  (displeasure)  are  probably  both  sen- 
sations and  qualia  of  consciousness  according  to  the  genetically 
determined  conditions  of  their  appearance.  They  have  also  been 
described  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  "action"  theory  of  con- 
sciousness as  impulses  in  the  service  of  perception  (Miinster- 
berg).* 

As  to  kinds  of  pleasure,  the  distinction  being  drawn  between 
the  concrete  mental  state  and  the  feeling  of  pleasantness,  it  is 
still  possible  to  distinguish  it  according  to  its  sources  as  sensuous 
and  ideal  and  according  to  its  character  as  exciting  and  calm, 
general  and  particular  (attached  to  individual  objects),  and  the 
like;  but  whether  it  embraces  a  plurality  of  qualitative  differences, 
as  Wundt  thinks,  or  is  always  intrinsically  the  same,  as  Kiilpe 
holds,  is  a  question  not  yet  settled.  Probably  the  majority  of 
contemporary  psychologists  favor  the  latter  opinion. 

As  to  the  immediate  conditions  of  its  genesis  in  the  individual, 
the  theories  may  be  broadly  divided  into  psychological  and  physi- 
ological. Psychological  theories  tend  to  be  either  intellectual- 
istic  or,  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term,  voluntaristic.  The 
former,  assuming  the  priority  in  mental  life  of  the  presentational 
content,  make  "feeling"  in  general  a  function  of  the  content 
and  pleasure  in  particular  a  product  of  its  freely  developing  ac- 

*  It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that  Aristotle  commonly  assigns  them  to 
ataO-qffis  and  occasionally  to  the  rb  iiridvix-qTiKbv  {Top.,  IV,  5,  126  a  g).  But 
these  ascriptions,  from  which  the  scholastic  reference  to  the  affections  to 
the  "sense-appetite  "  is  derived,  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  "  action'* 
theory  and  are  far  from  identical  with  the  "sensation  "  theory.  ^Aristotle's 
atadr]<Ti.s  is  our  "feeling  "  in  the  broad  sense. 


302  THE  THEORY  OF   PLEASURE 

tivity,  or  of  the  favorable  relations  of  its  elements.  This  was 
the  view  of  Herbart.  The  latter,  assuming  activity  or  func- 
tional process  as  fundamental,  make  pleasure  and  displeasure 
functions  in  the  process  of  apperception  or  assimilation  of  con- 
tent or  in  some  form  of  psychic  activity  agreeing  or  disagreeing 
with  the  tendencies  uppermost  at  the  moment,  whatever  their 
character  in  other  respects,  whether  profound  or  superficial. 
This  is  the  view,  with  varying  shades  of  difference,  of  Ward, 
Stout,  Lipps  and  Wundt.  Physiological  theories,  divided  over 
the  question  of  a  central  organ  of  affection — for  which  there  is 
little  evidence — tend  to  agree  in  connecting  pleasantness  and 
unpleasantness  with  conditions  suitable  or  unsuitable  for  efficient 
organic  activity  and  ultimately  with  contrasting  processes  in  the 
trophism  of  the  higher  centres.  There  are  numerous  forms  of 
the  theory,  some  highly  speculative  and  hardly  to  be  followed 
in  details.  One  of  the  best  known,  and  on  the  whole  most  plausi- 
ble, is  that  of  Dr.  Marshall.  Marshall  conceives  of  pleasure  and 
pain  as  determined  by  the  relation  of  the  energy  stored  up  by 
nutrition  of  the  blood  in  the  neural  elements  or  systems  corre- 
sponding to  noetic  consciousness  and  the  demand  made  by  the 
stimulus.  If  the  neural  elements  or  systems  are  so  well  nour- 
ished as  to  react  forcibly  to  the  stimulus,  we  have  pleasure,  if 
they  are  so  ill-nourished  as  to  act  but  feebly  to  the  same  stimulus, 
we  have  pain.*  Many  facts  of  experience  favor  this  hypothesis, 
notably  those  in  which  a  change  from  a  moderate  to  a  great 
stimulus  brings  about  a  transition  from  pleasure  to  pain;  but 
it  does  not  well  fit  them  all.  Even  with  the  gratuitous  assump- 
tion of  Dr.  Marshall  that  every  sensation  is,  or  would  be,  pleas- 
ant, with  a  stimulus  moderate  enough,  it  is  hard  to  believe,  for 
example,  that  the  neural  elements  corresponding  to  the  smell 
of  rotting  fish  are  so  ill-nourished  as  compared  with  those  excited 
by  the  scent  of  honeysuckle  that  the  demand  made  on  the  former 
by  even  a  slight  stimulus  is  excessive,  while  the  response  of  the 
latter,  under  normal  conditions,  is  invariably  efiicient. 

The  idea,  common  to  nearly  all  modern  and  ancient  doctrine, 
that  pleasure  is  a  concomitant  and  sign  of  ease,  efiiciency,  suc- 
cess in  the  ongoing  mental  and  bodily  processes,  is  expressed  in  a 

*  H.  R.  Marshall,  Paiji,  Pleasure  and  Esthetics,  pp.  15  ff.  (189-1.)  Con- 
sciovsness,  pp.  250  ff.     (1909.) 


THE  THEORY  OF   PLEASURE  303 

special  and  significant  form  in  the  modern  biological  theory, 
associated  partii'ulariy  with  the  names  of  Bain  and  Spencer, 
that  pleasure  is  the  product,  symptom  and  cause  of  organic  wel- 
fare, the  contrary  being  true  of  pain.  "Pains,"  says  Spencer, 
"are  the  correlatives  of  actions  injurious  to  the  organism,  while 
pleasures  are  the  correlatives  of  actions  conducive  to  its  welfare." 
And  again,  "Every  pleasure  increases  vitality;  every  pain  de- 
creases vitality.  Every  pleasure  raises  the  tide  of  life;  every  pain 
lowers  the  tide  of  life."*  Stated  thus,  the  theory  is  more  a* de- 
duction from  the  assured  principles  of  evolution  than  an  inductive 
generalisation  from  observed  facts.  Recent  criticism  has  brought 
to  light  such  a  mass  of  adverse  evidence — harmful  pleasures 
(alcohol,  morphine),  beneficial  pains  (surgical  operations),  grave 
organic  troubles  without  pain  (arterio-sclerosis,  phthisis,  tuber- 
culosis), pleasure  which  the  bodily  condition  fails  to  justify 
(euphoria  of  the  dying  and  insane),  displeasure  having  little  or 
no  connection  with  bodily  health  (intellectual,  aesthetic,  moral 
displeasure),  sensations  having  a  degree  of  unpleasantness  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  organic  injury  involved  (e.  g.,  from  a 
cinder  in  the  eye),  useful  actions  the  pleasure  in  which  bears 
little  relation  to  the  degree  of  their  utility  (breathing  air,  eating 
bread): — the  classes  might  be  variously  extended  and  the  illus- 
trations indefinitely  multiplied — that  it  is  impossible  to  main- 
tain with  any  strictness  the  existence  of  a  connection  between 
pleasure  and  organic  welfare,  pain  and  organic  injury.  We  may 
then  either  acknowledge  the  connection  in  general  while  denying 
it  in  detail,  or  we  may  acknowledge  it  in  the  details  of  the  organic 
process  while  denying  it  for  the  organic  process  as  a  whole. 
The  first  is  the  cour.se  adopted  by  Mr,  Spencer  himself  when  he 
admits,  indeed  insists,  that  the  pleasures  acquired  by  past  ac- 
commodations are  no  criteria  of  what  is  useful  for  an  organism 
required  to  accommodate  itself  to  ever  new  conditions,  especially 
those  arising,  as  in  the  case  of  man,  from  an  artificial  civilisation; 
but  this  fails  to  explain  the  many  persistent  anomalies  in  purely 
organic  pains  and  pleasures.  The  latter  is  the  explanation  of 
Lotze,  Lehmann  and  others,  who  hold,  for  example,  that  a  pleas- 
ant poison  is  good  for  the  tongue,  though  bad  for  the  blood  and 
the  organism  generally;  but  this  isolates  the  interrelated  parts  of 
*  Spencer,  Principles  of  Psychology,  §  124;  Data  of  Ethics,  §  36. 


304  THE   THEORY  OF  PLEASURE 

an  organic  process  and  leaves  little  remaining  of  the  theory  that 
pleasure  is  an  index  of  organic  welfare.* 

There  are  two  truths,  however,  underlying  the  theory  which  it 
is  important  not  to  lose  sight  of.  One  is  that  the  conditions  and 
meaning  of  pleasurable  experience  have  to  be  sought  in  part  at 
least  in  the  evolutionary  history  of  the  race.  This  is  an  essen- 
tially modern  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  which,  when  the  hypo- 
thetical construction  goes  hand  in  hand  with  observation  of  facts 
now  open  to  our  inspection,  promises  a  genuine  development  of 
our  insight.  And  it  seems  altogether  probable,  in  view  of  what 
we  now  see  of  the  effect  of  pleasure  on  action  and  of  the  connection 
of  pleasure  with  healthful  activities,  that  the  habitual  reactions 
to  the  conditions  favorable  to  life — reactions  to  light,  air,  warmth, 
food,  .etc. — when  sufficiently  intense  to  rise  to  consciousness  and 
not  too  intense  for  easy  accommodation,  were  originally  connect- 
ed with  pleasant  feeling  and  constitute  its  primordial  and  funda- 
mental source.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  pleasure,  as  such,  al- 
ways feels  good  and  that  pain  feels  bad.  But  the  conditions  of 
organic  evolution  are  so  extraordinarily  complex,  the  lines  of 
hereditary  transmission  so  tangled,  and  the  aims  and  interests 
of  a  human  being  so  far  in  excess  of  those  concerned  with  the 
maintenance  and  propagation  of  the  life  of  the  organism,  that  any 
advances  in  the  interpretation  of  the  principle  as  applied  to  our 
affections  seem  bound  to  be  slow  and  likely  to  remain  always 
more  or  less  tentative.  A  theory  which  connects  them  all  with 
organic  welfare  and  injury  is  too  simple.  The  second  element 
of  truth  in  the  biological  theory  is  that  pleasure  seems  always  to 
be  connected  with  enhancement  of  function.  The  mistake  lies 
in  identifying  that  with  organic  welfare.  It  is  not  of  the  further- 
ance of  energies  conducive  to  organic  or  mental  well-being  that 
pleasure  is  the  sign,  but  of  the  emergence  into  consciousness  of 
inherited  or  acquired  organic  or  mental  dispositions  with  which 
the  self  of  the  moment,  and  not  necessarily  the  larger  self  of  re- 
flective consciousness,  feels  itself  identified.  Pleasure  is  an  in- 
dex of  value,  but  what  it  indicates  is  not,  as  such,  the  real  and 

*  For  criticisms  of  the  theory,  see  Wundt,  Phys.  Psych.  ^,  II,  p.  354  f.; 
Ribot,  Psych,  d.  sentiments,  pp.  87-91;  Kiilpe,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  pp. 
268-270;  especially  C.  Nddejde,  Die  biologische  Theorie  der  Lust  u?id  Unlust, 
Heft  I.     Leipzig,  1908. 


THE   THEORY   OF  PLEASURE  305 

permanent  values  of  existence,  but  the  subordinate,  though  in 
many  respects  still  highly  important,  value  of  the  free  and  lively 
play  of  function  agreeable  to  the  latent  and  more  or  less  pro- 
foundly organised  tendencies  of  the  psychic  individual.  What 
pleases  is  an  object,  state  or  activity  by  or  in  which  a  function  is 
consciously  exercised  conforming  to  the  demands  of  the  ten- 
dency. Pleasure,  as  expressing  and  furthering  this  function, 
is  indeed  a  sign  of  enhanced  vitality,  not,  however,  of  the  organ- 
ism, but  of  the  tendency  and  of  the  function  sustaining  it. 

This  view  of  pleasure  is  substantially  the  view  of  Aristotle, 
substituting  "function"  for  "faculty."  If  we  may  assume  in 
the  free  and  unimpeded  exercise  of  a  function  above  the  level  of 
mere  mechanical  adjustment  or  a  subconscious  stirring  too  slight 
to  be  noticed  a  vital  process  disturbing  to  the  bare  equilibrium 
of  latent  energies,  but  tending  to  settle  and  consolidate  them  as 
functional  tendencies,  we  may  even  include  in  it  a  character- 
istic moment  of  the  conception  of  Plato.  But  modern  psychol- 
ogy, speaking  broadly,  lends  no  countenance  to  the  notion  that 
every  pleasure  is  preceded  by  conscious  pain.  Nor  does  it  sup- 
port the  contentions  of  either  pessimism  or  hedonism.  It  agrees 
with  the  ancient  doctrine  that  pleasure  is  a  "good,"  for  which 
even  Plato  may  be  cited,  and  which  cannot  be  successfully  de- 
nied. The  theologians  and  moralists  who  have  decried  pleasures 
as  evil  have  not  really  meant  to  include  all  pleasure  in  their  con- 
demnation. The  distinction  of  pleasure  from  its  conditions 
enables  us  to  go  farther  and  say  that  it  is  always  a  good.  But 
it  is  a  good  strictly  limited.  It  is  not  a  measure  of  all  the  values 
of  life,  but  only  of  the  unobstructed  flow  of  the  energies  tempora- 
rily expressing  present  tendencies.  The  origin  of  these  tenden- 
cies must  be  sought  in  the  complicated  phylogeny  and  ontogeny 
of  the  individual.  Their  ultimate  evaluation  belongs  partly  to 
biology,  partly  to  the  normative  sciences  of  the  mind,  and  in 
practical  reference  in  large  part  to  ethics  and  religion. 

Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 
September  5,  1910. 


XXIII 

NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

By  Frederick  J.  E.  Woodbridge 

The  operations  of  nature  do  not  appear  to  be  aimless  changes. 
They  issue  in  specific  products  the  history  of  which  can  be  traced 
and  construed  as  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  It  is,  doubt- 
less, this  aspect  of  nature  as  the  producer  of  definite  and  particular 
results  which,  more  than  any  other,  profoundly  stirs  the  imagina- 
tion and  provokes  scientific  curiosity.  From  of  old  the  coming 
into  being  of  things  in  an  ordered  world  and  their  passing  away 
has  been  the  theme  of  both  poet  and  scholar.  Reflection,  after 
it  has  endured  disappointment  and  sophistication,  may  come  to 
view  nature  with  eyes  less  fascinated  by  her  productivity,  seeing 
in  her  nothing  but  an  aimless  and  ceaseless  rearrangement  of 
elements  to  which  chance  or  a  human  prejudice  in  favor  of  final 
causes  imparts  the  illusory  appearance  of  direction;  but  such  is 
not  the  spontaneous  vision  of  things.  There  they  are,  constitut- 
ing the  great  whole  w^e  call  nature,  each  of  them  with  its  indi- 
vidual history  culminating  through  many  helps  and  hindrances 
in  the  present  product.  Illustrations  are  so  abundant  that  choice 
is  baflfled  in  selecting  the  most  appropriate.  For  while  living 
things  may  at  first  appear  to  be  more  evidently  the  products  of 
directive  and  selective  forces,  inanimate  nature  itself — the  plain 
with  mountains  about  it,  the  river  with  its  course  motived  by  the 
character  of  the  land  through  which  it  flows — exhibits  likewise 
the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  And  the  adaptations  are 
admirable,  well-calculated,  the  more  they  are  analyzed,  to  pro- 
duce the  specific  results  which  eventuate.  Thus  we  come  to 
think  that  we  have  explained  the  origin  of  anything  when  we  are 
able  to  view  it  as  the  kind  of  result  we  should  expect  from  the 

307 


308  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

operation  of  the  factors  which  have  produced  it.  But  this  means, 
of  course,  that  these  factors  serve.  They  aid  and  abet  the  out- 
come in  definite  ways  and  will  produce  it  if  no  obstacles  of  suf- 
ficient contrary  influence  thwart  their  natural  productivity. 
Thus  individual  existence  appears  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  suc- 
cess of  processes  which  help  toward  the  realization  of  some  spe- 
cific end  over  those  that  hinder  this  realization.  Nature  is  a 
domain,  not  of  chaotic  changes,  but  of  definite,  teleological 
changes  pointing  to  particular  results.  In  other  words,  in  view 
of  nature's  productivity,  there  are  helps  and  hindrances;  things 
and  the  elements  of  things  have  specific  uses. 

Philosophy  has  not  always  been  content  to  take  this  fact  of 
specific  usefulness  as  metaphysical,  something  to  be  set  down 
as  of  the  nature  of  things.  Explanation  has  been  sought  of  it 
and  the  question  asked.  Why  do  things  have  their  uses,  and,  in- 
deed, their  specific  uses?  In  asking  this  question  philosophy 
has  been  stimulated  by  an  analogy  which  has  often  proved  of 
striking  value,  the  analogy  between  nature  and  art.  For  art, 
like  nature,  produces.  Its  procedure  is  an  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends.  Now  art  is  controllable  and  its  manner  of  operating 
is  measurably  obvious,  while  nature  is  stubborn  and  obscure. 
The  building  of  a  house  is  a  comparatively  simple  process  for 
analysis,  but  the  factors  which  combine  to  produce  a  star  re- 
quire long  searching  for  their  discovery.  To  pass  from  art  to 
nature  thus  affords  knowledge  the  desired  opportunity  of  passing 
from  the  better  to  the  less  known.  Science  has  ever  availed 
itself  of  this  opportunity  and  by  so  doing  has  often  attained  its 
most  signal  achievements.  The  analogy  between  nature  and 
art  captivates  the  imagination  also  and  has  been  no  mean  in- 
strument in  the  poet's  hands.  And  it  has  an  obvious  bearing 
on  the  problem  of  use.  Its  record  in  this  respect  has,  however, 
been  unsatisfactory.  Instead  of  leading  to  accepted  and  in- 
telligible opinion,  it  has  led  to  bitter  controversy.  Instead  of 
clarifying  use,  it  has,  more  often,  obscured  and  mystified  use. 
Its  procedure  is  reviewed  here,  not  for  the  idle  purpose  of  fight- 
ing old  battles  over  again,  but  in  the  hope  of  securing  fresh  empha- 
sis upon  the  obvious,  but  often  neglected,  fact  that  teleology  is 
natural;  that  use  is  something  on  which  to  build,  not  something 
requiring  explanation;  that  it  is  a  datum  in  metaphysics. 


NATURAL  TELEOLOGY  309 


Art,  when  consciously  productive,  evidently  intends  its  prod- 
ucts to  be  useful.  A  house  is  made  for  shelter,  clothing  for  pro- 
tection or  adornment,  pictures  to  delight  the  sense.  The  skill 
of  the  artist  is  measured  by  the  success  with  which  he  makes 
his  materials  serve  his  chosen  end.  The  finality  of  art  appears, 
thus,  to  be  an  imparted  and  intended  finality.  So  we  find  a 
ready  explanation  of  the  usefulness  of  the  things  man  makes  in 
the  intention  or  design  with  which  he  makes  them.  Asking 
why  the  loom  so  successfully  weaves  the  colored  fabric,  we  get 
the  answer,  it  was  made  in  order  that  it  might  do  precisely  the 
thing  which  we  admire.  Furthermore  our  admiration  of  the 
product  passes  over  into  even  greater  admiration  of  the  skill 
which  could  contrive  a  machine  so  useful.  Thus  in  the  products 
of  art  we  seem  to  have  instances  where  the  explanation  of  use  is 
obvious.  The  ease  of  the  explanation  readily  begets  a  habit  of 
thinking  about  use  generally,  leading  us  to  regard  all  uses  as  de- 
signed for  the  ends  they  serve.  Since  the  hand  is  so  useful  for 
grasping  it  may  be  thought  of  as  made  in  order  to  grasp.  Since 
the  adaptations  of  nature  grow  more  wonderful  the  more  they 
are  perceived,  nature  may  be  thought  of  as  directed  by  a  skill 
commensurate  with  such  wonder.  The  analogy  between  nature 
and  art  thus  easily  constituted  is  reinforced  by  human  necessities. 
For  man  needs  the  useful  in  order  that  he  may  live  long  and  well. 
His  life  is  a  struggle  for  help.  Nature,  too,  appears  to  struggle 
and  its  products,  like  man  himself,  fail  if  help  is  not  attained. 
Indeed,  so  profoundly  may  this  analogy  between  nature  and  art 
affect  the  mind,  that  it  becomes  incredible  that  the  uses  of  nature 
have  any  other  explanation  than  in  a  power  great  enough  and 
intelligent  enough  to  contrive  their  manifold  adaptations. 
Thus  philosophy  is  led  to  explain  natural  use  by  design  and  to  see 
in  the  varied  adaptations  of  means  to  ends  in  nature  proof  of 
intelligent  direction.     Nature  becomes  thus  a  work  of  art. 

If  this  explanation  of  the  uses  of  things,  this  thinking  of  nature 
as  somehow  a  work  of  art  with  its  adaptations  admirably  con- 
trived, does  not  settle  down  into  an  unquestioned  faith,  it  suf- 
fers in  its  satisfactoriness  from  further  reflection.  For  no  work 
of  man's  art  is  so  perverse  as  nature.     The  spider  and  the  fly 


310  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

have  afforded  a  favorite  illustration  of  this.  How  admirably- 
adapted  is  the  spider's  web  for  catching  flies!  But  shall  we  also 
say,  How  admirably  are  flies  adapted  to  be  caught!  Such  a 
summer's  day  illustration  may  provoke  a  smile  at  the  ease  with 
which  philosophy  may  embrace  a  hasty  conclusion.  The 
tragedies  of  life,  however,  the  tragedies  which  arise  out  of  these 
same  adaptations  which  we  have  been  asked  to  admire,  provoke 
amazement  and  leave  the  mind  bewildered.  Expected  harvests 
blighted  in  a  night,  lives  of  promise  lost  through  no  discoverable 
fault,  even  the  kindnesses  of  men  turned  to  cruelty  when  blame 
can  be  lodged  at  no  one's  door — these  and  a  multitude  of  similar 
instances  make  nature  as  a  work  of  art  irrational  and  perverse. 
Indeed,  if  philosophy  has  found  it  easy  to  accept  the  adaptations 
of  nature  as  evidence  of  intelligent  contrivance,  it  has  also  found 
it  easy  to  tear  that  evidence  to  shreds.  Count  only  the  gains, 
the  seed  breaking  upward  towards  the  life-engendering  sun,  and 
the  inference  to  design  looks  easy;  but  count  the  losses  also, 
the  frost  that  kills  before  the  blossom,  and  the  inference  is  hard. 
If,  when  all  is  considered,  belief  in  design  still  lingers,  it  is  belief 
in  a  design  the  purposes  of  which  are  past  finding  out,  and  clear- 
ness of  philosophical  vision  gives  place  to  profound  bewilder- 
ment. Nature,  as  a  work  of  art,  becomes,  thus,  an  inscrutable 
mystery. 

There  are  other  considerations  besides  nature's  perversity 
which  disturb  the  opinion  that  use  may  be  explained  by  intelli- 
gent design.  The  analogy  between  nature  and  art  may  be  pre- 
served while  the  inference  to  intelligent  direction  is  abandoned. 
For  the  products  of  art  often  turn  out  to  have  uses  which  the 
artist  neither  intended  nor  suspected.  In  breaking  stones, 
man  discovered  fire.  In  trying  to  make  gold,  he  found  what 
gold  could  never  buy.  But  there  is  no  need  of  striking  illustra- 
tions, for  accidental  advantage  is  one  of  the  commonest  attendants 
of  directed  activity.  Now  this  fact  may  be  generalized  as  well  as 
that  of  intelligent  direction,  and  use  be,  consequently,  explained 
as  an  accident,  as  something  which  attaches  to  things  not  by 
design  or  for  any  ascertainable  reason,  but,  as  we  are  wont  to 
say,  by  chance.  Incredible  as  such  an  explanation  often  appears 
when  first  proposed,  it  grows  in  credibility  as  it  is  steadily  con- 
templated.    For,  contradictory  as  it  may  seem,  the  appeal  to 


NATURAL   TELEOLOGY  311 

chance  tends  to  become,  when  attention  is  focused  on  the  thing 
that  happens,  an  appeal  to  necessity.  Long  ago  Democritus 
noted  that  the  orderly  arrangement  of  the  sand,  the  pebbles,  and 
the  stones  upon  a  beach  was  not  due  to  any  designed  selection, 
but  was  the  necessary  result  of  the  coincidence  of  these  things 
and  the  action  of  the  waves.  So,  too,  while  the  arrangement  of 
plants  in  a  garden  may  show  the  gardener's  taste  and  skill,  the 
distribution  of  vegetation  about  the  shores  of  a  lake,  although 
no  less  remarkable  in  its  arrangement,  needs  no  gardener  for  its 
explanation;  for,  again,  the  fact  that  water  and  soil  have  hap- 
pened to  meet  there  under  certain  natural  conditions  excludes 
any  other  explanation  of  the  resulting  order.  And  it  has  not  been 
difficult  to  extend  a  similar  explanation  to  the  marvellous  struct- 
ures and  functions  of  animals.  Its  apparent  incredibility 
when  so  extended  steadily  diminishes  with  greater  familiarity 
with  the  facts  and  wath  increased  experimentation,  until  it  be- 
comes no  longer  easy — it  may,  indeed,  become  impossible — to 
think  of  nature  as  a  work  of  art.  Its  uses  and  adaptations  ap- 
pear rather  to  be  accidental,  because  they  simply  befall  under 
the  conditions  w^hich  happen  to  exist  in  any  given  case.  They 
appear  also  to  be  necessary,  because,  given  these  conditions,  no 
other  results  than  the  actual  appear  to  have  been  possible. 

The  explanation  of  use  by  design  founded  upon  the  analogy 
between  nature  and  art  finds  thus  a  rival  explanation  in  the  con- 
tention that  use  is  the  outcome  of  chance  and  necessity,  a  rival 
founded  upon  the  same  analogy.  The  first  is  a  generalization 
from  intended  use  and  the  second  is  a  generalization  from  un- 
intended use.  Yet  the  second  has  a  certain  superiority  over  the 
first.  The  perversity  of  nature,  as  we  have  seen,  reduces  the 
generalization  of  design  to  a  mystery,  making  the  purposes  of 
nature  inscrutable.  But  it  is  just  this  perversity  which  the  con- 
trasted generalization  appears  competent  to  explain.  For,  if 
there  is  no  design  in  nature,  but  advantage  and  disadvantage 
fall  out  as  the  conditions  happening  at  the  time  determine,  per- 
versity in  nature  is  something  to  be  expected.  Life  will  be 
quickened  under  the  sun's  grateful  warmth,  but  be  destroyed 
by  the  sudden  frost.  As  nature  works  for  no  hoped  for  or  ex- 
pected results,  its  results  are  simply  those  that  happen.  Thus 
within  the  limits  of  their  definitions,  within  the  limits,  that  is. 


312  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

set  by  the  facts  from  which  they  are  generalizations,  the  infer- 
ence to  design  is  inferior  to  the  inference  to  chance  and  necessity. 
Yet  the  conviction  that  things  must  be  as  they  are  is  a  potent 
means  of  obscuring  what  they  are,  and  the  appeal  to  chance  is 
often  only  a  device  to  end  our  curiosity.  To  conclude,  therefore, 
that  the  teleology  of  nature  has  been  explained,  may  not,  after 
all,  be  an  exhibition  of  wisdom. 

There  lurks  in  the  argument  which,  in  contrast  to  the  argu- 
ment from  design,  may  be  called  the  argument  from  chance 
and  necessity,  an  obscurity  regarding  what  it  has  really  achieved 
which  is  seldom  sufficiently  emphasized.  The  argument  is  essen- 
tially negative.  It  insists  that  there  is  no  valid  reason  for  appeal- 
ing to  design  in  explaining  the  adaptations  of  nature;  it  points 
out  that  these  adaptations,  when  clearly  seen,  appear  to  be  the 
natural  outcome  of  the  conditions  under  which  they  arise;  when 
applied  to  specific  cases,  it  often  succeeds  in  tracing  admirably 
the  history  of  the  adaptations  involved.  These  are  admitted 
services.  But  it  may  not  claim  that  use  has  been  explained, 
that  a  world  of  useless  things  could  by  chance  or  by  necessity 
become  a  world  of  useful  things.  Its  most  ardent  supporters 
would  hardly  venture  to  make  such  a  claim.  Yet  the  suggestion 
of  it  serves  to  show  the  limits  within  which  the  argument  moves. 
Chance,  that  is,  can  operate  to  produce  adaptation  only  under 
conditions  where  that  adaptation  is  already  possible.  A  varia- 
tion can  turn  out  to  be  useful  only  in  an  environment  where  it  has 
a  possible  use.  It  would  be  quite  profitless,  for  example,  for 
an  organism  to  develop  eyes  in  a  world  where  there  was  nothing 
to  see.  Thus  chance  and  necessity  can  operate  to  secure  adap- 
tation only  in  a  world  where  things  have  their  specific  uses,  only 
in  a  world  already  essentially  teleological.  The  uses  and  adapta- 
tions of  nature  remain,  having  lost  nothing  of  their  teleological 
character  from  our  efforts  to  explain  them  or  to  explain  them  away. 
Nature  may  not  be  a  work  of  art.  It  may  not  be  a  work  of  chance. 
It  is  a  domain  of  uses  where  chance  and  design  may  operate,  but 
it  is  a  domain  of  uses  first. 

Still  the  analogy  between  nature  and  art  may  be  preserved, 
but  it  should  now  be  less  ambitiously  construed.  Art  and  nature 
both  produce  and  their  products  are  both  useful  and  instances 
of  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.     But  in  neither  case  is  use 


NATURAL   TELEOLOGY  313 

itself  something  produced.  Not  to  be  sufficiently  conscious  of 
this  fact  is  to  run  the  risk  of  confusing  the  analogy  and  indulging 
in  unwarranted  speculations.  Art  makes  useful  things  and  may 
make  them  with  or  without  intention,  but  it  never  makes  things 
useful.  That  fact  alone  renders  the  argument  from  design  or 
from  chance  logically  illegitimate.  Since  the  sun's  warmth  is 
grateful,  it  may  be  thought  of  as  graciously  bestowed.  Life 
would  indeed  be  poor  if  such  a  sentiment  were  forbidden;  but 
sentiment  is  not  reason.  It  is  one  thing  to  call  the  sun  gracious 
because  its  effects  are  grateful,  but  it  is  quite  a  different  thing 
to  regard  these  effects  as  evidence  that  the  sun  acts  with  a  motive. 
Poetry  and  science  are  separated  by  that  difference.  It  is  im- 
perative in  science  that  evidence  should  be  evidence,  that  the 
facts  cited  should  be  unequivocal  in  their  import.  But  in  the 
illustration  it  is  clear  that  the  sun's  warmth  would  be  grateful 
even  if  it  were  bestowed  with  malice  or  with  no  motive  at  all. 
To  be  sure  a  generous  gift  implies  a  generous  giver,  but  the  thing 
given  is  not  a  gift  because  it  has  the  quality  of  being  generous. 
It  is  a  gift  for  other  reasons,  and  no  connection  is  discoverable 
between  these  reasons  and  that  quality  which  warrants  an  in- 
ference from  the  one  to  the  other.  So  too  with  respect  to  use; 
if  a  thing  is  useful,  it  is  useful  irrespective  of  the  causes  which 
produced  it,  and  no  connection  is  discoverable  between  its  use 
and  its  causes  which  warrants  an  inference  from  the  one  to  the 
other.  It  is  not  because  it  is  a  work  of  art  that  a  watch  is  use- 
ful; and  it  is  not  because  the  adaptations  in  nature  may  be  the 
work  of  chance  that  they  are  useful.  The  use  of  anything  is, 
thus,  no  evidence  whatever  of  the  character  of  its  origin.  A 
thing  may  originate  by  art  or  it  may  originate  by  chance,  but 
whether  it  is  useful  or  not  is  not  thereby  determined.  Since, 
therefore,  there  is  no  ascertained  connection  between  use  as 
use,  on  the  one  hand,  and  chance  or  design,  on  the  other,  the 
arguments  which  have  been  considered  lack  the  kind  of  evi- 
dence required  by  science.  Use  is,  accordingly,  to  be  set  down, 
not  as  a  product  of  nature  or  of  art,  but  as  a  factor  in  their  pro- 
ductivity. Art  and  nature  are,  therefore,  alike  in  this,  that  in 
their  productions  use  is  discovered  and  applied. 


314  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 


II 


The  argument  thus  far  pursued  points  to  the  conclusion  that 
use,  when  it  exists,  is  not  produced,  but  discovered,  that,  in  the 
last  analysis,  it  is  an  original  property  of  whatever  possesses  it. 
Teleology  is  natural,  something  to  build  upon,  not  something 
to  be  explained.  There  is,  as  Aristotle  insisted  long  ago,  a 
final  factor  in  every  instance  of  production,  and  thus  a  final 
factor  among  the  factors  of  evolution.  But  it  may  be  urged  that 
thus  to  regard  use  as  natural  is  not  to  provide  knowledge  with 
a  valuable  category.  It  is  the  business  of  knowledge,  one  may 
claim,  to  study  how  things  do  and  may  go  together.  It  is  causes 
and  not  uses  which  constitute  the  object  of  scientific  research. 
To  look  for  them  with  an  eye  on  use  is  to  rob  science  of  its  dis- 
interestedness. For  use  is  detected  only  as  means  and  ends 
are  distinguished,  while  causes  operate  independent  of  such  dis- 
tinction. If,  therefore,  it  is  afiirmed  that  use  is  a  factor  in 
nature's  processes,  must  it  not  also  be  affirmed  that  nature  dis- 
tinguishes between  means  and  ends?  And  does  not  this  latter 
affirmation  imply  that  nature,  after  all,  operates  intelligently, 
and  so  open  the  door  again  to  visionary  speculation  ? 

But  there  is  no  peculiar  sanctity  attaching  to  the  category  of 
causation,  just  as  there  is  no  peculiar  sanctity  attaching  to  any 
category  of  thought.  Consequently,  when  it  is  asserted  that 
nature  must  operate  intelligently  if  means  and  ends  are  to  be 
naturally  distinguished,  there  is  a  ready  retort  in  the  assertion 
that  nature  must  also  operate  intelligently  if  causes  and  eft'ects 
are  to  be  naturally  distinguished.  Yet  it  is  not  good  philosophy 
to  dismiss  an  objection  simply  by  pointing  out  that  it  shares  the 
difficulty  which  it  raises.  For  simply  to  put  one's  argument  and 
objections  to  it  in  the  same  boat  is  not  to  be  well-assured  of  a 
prosperous  voyage.  Reason  may  be  better  served  by  a  considera- 
tion of  her  chart,  for  her  voyage  is  not  arbitrary,  nor  her  port 
self-chosen.  To  drop  the  figure,  the  mind  cannot  create  the  dis- 
tinctions which  it  discovers.  Were  there  no  causes  and  effects 
discoverable  in  nature,  nature  would  never  be  construed  by  the 
mind  in  those  terms.  And  the  same  is  true  of  means  and  ends. 
That  ends  are  reached  in  nature  through  the  utilization  of  ser- 
viceable means  is  as  simple  and  unsullied  a  fact  of  observation 


NATURAL   TELEOLOGY  315 

as  any  other.  It  is  not  read  into  the  order  of  things;  and  surely 
disinterested  inquiry  should  not  read  it  out  for  the  irrelevant 
reason  that  intelligence  is  necessary  in  order  to  observe  it.  The 
sole  question  to  be  raised  about  any  category  of  thought  is  the 
extent  of  its  applicability.  Now  to  claim  that  the  distinction 
between  means  and  ends  is  known  only  when  intelligence  oper- 
ates is  not  the  same  as  to  claim  that  the  distinction  exists  only 
when  intelligence  operates.  Indeed,  as  has  already  been  pointed 
out,  there  is  no  discoverable  connection  between  intelligence  and 
use  which  warrants  an  inference  from  the  one  to  the  other. 
The  category  of  use  is  not,  therefore,  necessarily  limited  in  its 
application  to  the  field  where  intelligence  operates.  Philosophy  is 
amply  justified  in  supposing  that  a  world  of  useful  things  could 
exist,  characterized  by  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  and  yet 
unillumined  throughout  its  whole  extent  by  the  presence  of 
thought.  Only,  let  it  be  added,  such  a  world  would  not  be  our 
world. 

Our  world  is  illumined  by  thought.  By  such  illumination 
the  distinction  between  means  and  ends,  together  with  all  other 
discoverable  distinctions,  gains  in  significance.  The  gain,  how- 
ever, is  still  natural.  It  is  another  instance  of  natural  teleology. 
For  nature  produces  thinking  beings  as  well  as  whirling  stars. 
It  is,  consequently,  no  more  astonishing  that  men  should  phi- 
losophize than  that  bodies  should  fall;  that  nature,  through  its 
products,  should  operate  intelligently,  than  that  it  should  oper- 
ate unintelligently.  There  are,  doubtless,  difficulties  in  tracing 
the  natural  genesis  of  intelligent  beings,  but  these  difficulties  are 
not  reasons  for  concluding  that  their  genesis  is  not  natural.  Men 
are  not  dropped  into  the  world  from  without.  Nature  may, 
therefore,  be  said  to  be  intelligent,  but  the  statement  should  not 
be  rendered  absurd  by  a  misuse  of  the  concept  of  totality.  One 
may  speak  of  nature  as  a  whole  if  one's  intention  is  to  be  as  in- 
clusive as  possible  in  one's  utterances.  For  nature  as  a  whole 
is  simply  nothing  left  out,  but  nothing  more.  As  a  whole,  nature 
allows  no  other  descriptive  predicates.  It  is  simply  the  domain 
where  predicates  are  specific  in  their  application.  To  affirm, 
therefore,  that  nature  is  intelligent,  is  to  affirm  that  among  the 
total  of  its  specific  operations  intelligence  is  to  be  included. 
Since  nature  appears  to  be  intelligent  in  this  sense,  since  our 


316  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

world  is  illumined  by  thought,  the  distinction  between  art  and 
nature  turns  out  to  be  a  distinction  within  nature  itself,  a  dis- 
tinction between  nature  as  intelligent  and  nature  as  unintelli- 
gent. It  points  to  a  specific  instance  of  the  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends.  It  is  a  special  case  of  use.  Thus,  far  from  creating 
the  distinction  between  means  and  ends,  intelligence  is  one  of 
its  most  significant  illustrations. 

In  metaphysics,  moreover,  the  category  of  use  W'Ould  appear 
to  be  indispensable.  Here,  at  least,  where  the  aim  is  to  define 
the  factors  which  enter  into  existence  generally,  our  view  of  things 
is  warped  by  a  too  exclusive  emphasis  upon  causation.  Meta- 
physics may  be  limited  in  the  appeal  it  makes,  and  our  chief 
business  in  life  may  remain  the  discovery  of  the  quantitative 
value  of  the  factors  which  combine  to  effect  any  change;  but 
only  a  mind  long  habituated  to  the  disregard  of  all  but  the  quanti- 
tative can  be  content  to  construe  the  world  generally  only  in 
quantitative  terms.  The  quantitative  is  only  so  much,  and  al- 
ways so  much  of  the  concrete  and  the  qualitative,  of  sugar  and 
salt,  of  gold  and  silver,  of  space  and  time,  of  motion  and  elec- 
tricity. Furthermore,  all  our  skill  is  unable  to  discover  any  con- 
nection between  the  quantitative  value  of  a  cause  and  the  pe- 
culiar character  of  its  efficiency.  The  quantity  of  food  required 
to  sustain  life  does  not  resemble  the  quality  of  the  life  sustained. 
And  while  we  may  consider  such  a  generalization  as  the  con- 
servation of  energy  to  be  among  the  triumphs  of  scientific  in- 
duction, its  value  consists,  not  in  rendering  the  characteristic 
efficiency  of  any  cause  intelligible,  but  rather  in  showing  that 
all  causes  appear  to  be  connected  and  subject  to  control.  Con- 
sequently philosophy  can  never  be  satisfied  with  the  attempt 
to  regard  the  qualitative  features  of  the  world  as  negligible  in 
any  effort  to  construe  existence  generally.  For  this  purpose  the 
category  of  causation  is  inadequate,  because  it  is  colorless.  More- 
over, it  is  useful  only  because,  in  its  application,  it  presupposes  the 
characteristic  and  qualitative  efficiency  of  the  factors  w'ith  which 
it  deals.  To  define  a  world,  therefore,  solely  in  terms  of  the  di- 
mensions of  energy,  is  to  define  another  world  than  ours.  The 
vision  of  things  is  only  distorted  when  their  qualitative  features, 
their  esthetic  character  even,  are  regarded  merely  as  the  inciden- 
tal byplay  of  factors  which  have  no  other  law  than  the  equation. 


NATURAL  TELEOLOGY  317 

III 

The  justification  of  the  category  of  use  has,  thus  far,  been 
mainly  negative.  The  attempt  has  been  made  to  show,  first, 
that  there  is  no  relevant  connection  between  the  fact  of  tele- 
ology and  the  operations  of  chance  or  design;  and,  secondly, 
that  intelligence  may  not  be  regarded  as  the  source  of  the  dis- 
tinction between  means  and  ends,  because  it  cannot  be  credited 
with  creating  the  distinctions  it  discovers,  and  because  it  is 
itself  an  instance  of  teleology.  These  considerations  do  not, 
however,  amount  to  a  positive  definition.  They  produce  at 
best  a  negative  conviction  and  so  serve  to  warn  us  that  teleology 
is  to  be  reckoned  with.  But  if  teleology  is  natural,  how  is  it 
to  be  naturally  construed  and  worked  out?  This  study  would 
be  incomplete  if  no  attempt  were  made  to  answer  the  question. 
For  the  baffling  thing  about  the  distinction  between  means  and 
ends  is  that  it  is  a  distinction  which  points  towards  the  future; 
and  to  regard  an  end  not  yet  attained  as  an  efficient  factor  in 
producing  present  changes  has  never  been  productive  of  gener- 
ally convincing  reasoning.  Historically  the  progress  of  knowl- 
edge has  often  been  arrested  by  some  fresh  and  fascinating  ap- 
peal to  final  causes,  but  knowledge  has  usually  proceeded  again 
unmodified  by  the  appeal  except  in  so  far  as  it  has  directed  at- 
tention to  new  methods  of  obviating  the  difficulties  it  raises. 
The  science  of  biology  is  a  pertinent  illustration  of  this.  Its 
history  is  marked  by  repeated  appearances  of  vitalism  in  some 
form,  but  its  great  gains  have  not  been  made  by  the  use  of  that 
hypothesis.  There  is,  thus,  in  the  fact  noted,  cause  for  inquiry 
and  caution.  The  appeal  to  final  causes  always  commands 
interest,  but  it  is  always  regarded  with  suspicion.  The  interest 
appears  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the  appeal  forcibly  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  habitual  presupposition  of  finality  in  tracing  the  course 
of  any  natural  process.  The  suspicion  appears  to  be  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  appeal  insists  that  what  the  presupposition  involves 
should  be  regarded  as  an  efficient  factor  during  the  process.  The 
issue  thus  raised  is  more  of  a  logical  tangle  than  a  question  of 
fact.  Its  analysis  may  serve  to  indicate  that  a  definition  of 
natural  teleology  must  recognize  an  ultimate  diversity  in  the 
character  of  the  factors  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  Use  is 
always  specific  use. 


318  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

The  bare  statement  that  the  attempt  to  trace  the  life  history 
of  a  given  organism  is  the  attempt  to  follow  the  movement  from 
its  germ  to  its  matured  forai,  is  suflBcient  to  indicate  that  the  finality 
of  the  movement  is  presupposed.  For  the  germ  is  not  the  germ 
of  an  organism  in  general,  but  the  germ  of  a  particular  organism. 
A  kernel  of  corn  is  not  a  grain  of  wheat.  And,  to  transfer  the 
illustration  to  the  inorganic  world,  carbon  is  not  oxygen.  Con- 
sequently, whether  we  are  dealing  with  elements  or  with  com- 
plexes, with  dead  things  or  with  living  things,  these  factors, 
if  they  are  to  enter  into  the  production  of  any  future  result,  are 
never  conceived  irrespective  of  the  particular  part  they  are  to 
play  in  that  production.  Their  finality,  their  serviceableness  in 
the  production  of  definite  ends  is  presupposed.  Without  the 
presupposition  inquiry  could  not  go  forward,  but,  when  once 
made,  the  presupposition  may  be  disregarded  without  any  dam- 
age resulting  to  the  explanation.  To  conclude,  however,  that 
teleology  does  not  exist  or  that  it  has  been  explained  is  unwar- 
ranted. It  both  exists  and  is  unexplained.  An  appeal  to  final 
causes  directs  attention  to  this  fact.  But  it  goes  further.  It 
insists  that  an  additional  cause  should  be  incorporated  among 
the  already  ascertained  factors  in  any  process.  It  invokes  some 
"end,"  "form,"  "idea,"  "entelechy,"  "psychoid,"  "soul,"  to 
account  for  the  fact  that  specific  ends  are  reached.  The  situa- 
tion thus  produced  is  ambiguous  and  confusing.  If  one  asks 
what  is  the  specific  function  of  the  final  cause,  the  answer  is, 
obviously,  to  give  the  product  its  specific  character.  Since, 
however,  the  product  must  first  exist  before  its  specific  character 
is  realized,  and  since  this  character  has  already  been  presup- 
posed, the  answer  appears  to  mean  nothing  at  all  or  an  absurd- 
ity. An  acorn  is  not  an  oak,  but  to  put  an  oak  into  the  acorn 
in  order  to  explain  why  acorns  grow  into  oaks  instead  of  into 
fishes,  is  like  putting  an  explosion  into  gunpowder  in  order  to 
explain  why  it  explodes  when  ignited.  In  other  words  to  put 
the  end  of  a  process  into  the  beginning  of  it  in  order  to  explain 
why  that  end  is  reached,  is  either  meaningless  or  absurd.  For, 
assuredly,  if  the  end  existed  at  the  beginning  we  should  need 
more  than  all  our  wit  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other.  A 
world  so  constituted  would  be  a  world  where  nothing  could  hap- 
pen, a  perfectly  static  world.  If  it  is  urged  that  this  is  only  a 
caricature  of  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  the  reply  may  wisely 


NATURAL   TELEOLOGY  319 

be  made  that  that  doctrine  is  only  a  caricature  of  the  facts. 
For  Httle  more  is  gained  besides  a  kind  of  mystification  of  the 
mind  by  expressing  the  doctrine  in  terms  less  gross  than  those 
here  employed. 

Yet  something  is,  perhaps,  gained,  although  a  more  refined 
expression  is  not  necessary  to  secure  it,  and  although  the  gain  is 
not  a  gain  for  the  doctrine  itself.  The  appeal  to  final  causes  calls, 
as  we  have  seen,  attention  to  the  fact  that  teleology  exists,  but 
is  unexplained.  Its  own  explanation  is  devoid  of  force  because 
it  turns  the  necessary  presupposition  of  teleology  in  any  movement 
toward  a  result  into  a  cause  why  the  particular  result  is  reached. 
That  is  why  it  fails  to  be  logically  convincing.  But  its  failure 
does  not  constitute  a  reason  for  rejecting  teleology.  It  points 
rather  to  the  fact  that  what  is  needed  is  not  explanation,  but  defi- 
nition. It  does  more.  It  points  also  to  the  fact  that  any  defini- 
tion of  teleology  must  recognize  an  essential  diversity  of  character 
in  the  processes  involved  in  any  change.  Things  and  the  elements 
of  things  are  specifically  different  in  their  character  and  their 
operations.  In  terms  of  use,  uses  are  always  specific  and  in 
specific  directions. 

When  we  indulge  in  speculations  about  the  origin  of  things 
in  general  we  are  forced  to  conceive  that  origin  as  capable  of 
yielding  the  kind  of  world  we  discover  ours  to  be.  Such  specula- 
tions may  at  first  impose  themselves  upon  the  mind  as  explana- 
tions of  why  things  are  as  they  are,  but  candid  scrutiny  can  find 
in  them  only  more  or  less  successful  generalizations  of  the  ob- 
vious. Thus  our  attempts  to  explain  why  the  processes  of  the 
world  move  on  in  specific  and  distinguished  directions  with  spe- 
cific and  distinguished  results,  amounts,  in  the  last  analysis,  to 
a  generalization  of  the  fact  of  specific  difference  in  a  dynamic 
world.  In  biology,  for  instance,  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 
species  is  always  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  particular  species, 
and  its  solution  is  not  an  explanation  of  the  existence  of  species 
generally.  The  solution  is  rather  the  fact  of  specific  differences 
generalized  and  refined  in  view  of  the  conditions  under  which 
they  exist.  By  this  is  not  meant,  of  course,  that  biological  species 
must  always  have  existed,  but  that  ultimately  specific  difl'er- 
ences  in  the  factors  dealt  with  must  exist  if  specific  differences 
in  the  results  of  their  operation  are  to  be  made  clear.     Express- 


320  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

ing  the  matter  once  more  in  general  terms,  recognition  is  here 
asked  of  the  fact  that  uses  are  specific  and  operate  in  specific 
directions.  In  other  words,  to  claim  that  things  are  generally 
useful  is  not  to  exliibit  the  fact  of  teleology  in  the  processes  of 
nature.  The  particular — and,  indeed,  many — ways  in  which 
they  are  useful  must  first  be  discriminated  if  there  is  to  be  any 
pertinent  consideration  of  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 
The  teleology  of  nature  is  not,  therefore,  a  general  drift  toward 
some  general  result,  it  is  always  in  individualized  directions. 
It  is  a  teleology  of  special  cases.  Our  world  is  thus  a  collection 
of  concretes,  so  that  we  are  always  inquiring  about  some  definite 
thing,  a  star,  an  atom,  an  element,  an  organism,  or  some  specific 
relation  of  these  things  to  one  another.  There  is  no  other  kind 
of  profitable  inquiry,  because  there  is  no  other  kind  of  sub- 
ject-matter for  investigation.  Ultimately  concrete  and  specific 
differences  in  the  character  and  operations  of  whatever  factors 
go  to  make  up  the  world,  appear,  thus,  to  be  the  first  element  in 
a  definition  of  natural  teleology.  Given  such  dift'erences,  any 
change,  no  matter  how  it  originated,  would  be  subject  to  them, 
and  the  resulting  movement  be  consequently  a  controlled  move- 
ment. 

Natural  teleology  involves  more  than  controlled  movement. 
We  get  but  an  inadequate  picture  of  things  if  we  view  them  only 
as  the  arrangement  of  given  factors  under  fixed  conditions. 
For  the  movements  of  nature  are  marked  by  unmistakable  gains 
and  losses;  they  are  helped  and  hindered.  In  view  of  these  helps 
and  hindrances,  it  is  possible  for  us  to  select  any  one  of  the  con- 
crete things  of  the  world  and  regard  it  as  a  center,  while  the 
others  form  its  varying  attendants  or  environment.  The  world's 
processes  may  thus  be  regarded  as  the  interaction  between  a 
thing  and  its  surroundings.  Since  the  selection  of  any  center  is 
at  our  pleasure,  this  procedure  has  a  certain  universality  about  it, 
so  that  the  complete  natural  history  of  anything  would  be  a  his- 
tory of  nature  itself.  Yet  many  such  histories  would  have  to  be 
written,  for  the  world  as  a  whole  has  no  possible  single  history, 
because  it  has  no  possible  environment  with  which  to  be  related. 
But  one  may  say  that  it  has  many  histories,  because,  as  a  whole, 
it  is  but  the  sum  of  all  possible  distinctions  between  a  thing  and 
its  environment.     Thus  we  come  once  more  upon  the  fact  of 


NATURAL  TELEOLOGY  321 

ultimately  specific  differences,  but  we  come  upon  it  under  new 
aspects.  For  to  construe  the  world  as  the  environment  of  any 
chosen  thing  as  its  center,  reveals  the  world  as  contributing,  not 
only  in  different  ways,  but  with  unequal  success  to  the  processes 
of  that  thing.  The  elements  in  the  environment  are  not  all  use- 
ful, and  those  that  are  useful  are  not  all  equally  so.  Any  thing's 
existence  presents  itself  thus  as  a  kind  of  survival,  as  a  cen- 
ter where  the  useful  in  a  given  direction  has  been  in  excess. 
While  attempts  to  explain  survival  are  not  usually  successful 
because  they  have  a  fatal  tendency  to  reduce  themselves  to 
the  simple  statement  that  things  do  survive,  it  is  evident  that 
only  in  a  teleological  world  is  the  concept  of  survival  appropri- 
ate. Indeed,  when  the  concept  is  critically  examined,  it  appears 
to  mean  primarily  that  all  things  are  not  equally  useful  in  sup- 
porting individual  existence.  Natural  teleology  involves,  there- 
fore, the  recognition  that  use  is  comparative.  Things  and  the 
elements  of  things  differ  in  their  teleological  importance.  De- 
ductively expressed,  one  might  say:  Given  a  world  made  up  of 
specifically  different  elements  in  dynamic  relations  and  of  differ- 
ent values  with  respect  to  any  processes  which  might  occur, 
these  processes  w'ould  result  in  specific  products  the  existence  of 
which  could  be  construed  as  survivals,  as  the  adaptations  of 
means  to  ends,  as  the  success  of  processes  which  help  more  over 
those  that  help  less.  The  deductive  expression  ought  not, 
however,  to  blind  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  it  is  not  an  hypothesis 
invented  to  explain  the  world.  It  is  only  a  generalization  of 
familiar  facts. 

The  third  element  in  a  definition  of  natural  teleology  is  a  cor- 
ollary of  the  preceding.  Uses  are  not  only  specifically  different 
and  of  comparative  value,  they  also  persist  and  accumulate. 
The  eye,  when  it  appeared,  afforded,  not  a  temporary  glimpse  of 
the  world,  but  a  continuing  vision  of  it.  This  persistence  and  ac- 
cumulation, however,  should  be  construed  under  the  general 
limitations  already  set  for  the  definition.  That  is,  we  do  not 
appear  w^arranted  in  speaking  of  progress  in  general;  we  may 
speak  only  of  specific  and  individualized  progress.  Conse- 
quently, when  we  affirm  that  natural  teleology  is  progressive, 
we  affirm  that  factors  of  greater  teleological  importance  have  con- 
tinued to  operate.     The  fact  of  such  continuance  is  the  fact  of 


322  NATURAL    TELEOLOGY 

progress.  It  is  possible,  therefore,  to  imagine  that  a  given 
thing,  if  it  met  with  no  hindrance  in  the  progressive  appropria- 
tion of  the  useful,  would  present  an  instance  of  the  steady  ap- 
proach towards  complete  adaptation  to  its  environment  and 
towards  a  conquest  of  the  uses  of  the  world.  The  Malthusian 
rabbit  might  thus  become  sovereign  of  the  universe.  It  is,  there- 
fore, not  unnatural  to  believe  that,  if  there  is  any  dominating 
direction  in  the  appropriation  of  the  useful,  that  direction  must 
be  due  to  the  operation  of  some  individual  being.  But  sober 
thinking  is  reminded  that  the  directions  in  which  use  is  appro- 
priated are  many  and  diverse,  and  that  hindrances  consequently 
oppose  complete  adaptation.  There  is  war  in  the  world  and 
sovereignty  there  is  hazardous.  The  most  dominating  of  beings 
may  succumb  to  the  most  insignificant,  as  man  may  be  destroyed 
by  the  animalcule.  Yet  sober  thinking  must  also  recognize  that 
the  symbol  of  war  is  appropriate,  and  that  uncertainty  in  the 
tenure  of  supremacy  does  not  obscure  the  fact  that  there  are 
genuine  victories. 

The  definition  of  natural  teleology  involves,  therefore,  be- 
sides the  recognition  that  uses  are  specific,  in  specific  and  con- 
trolled directions,  and  of  comparative  value  in  view  of  these 
directions,  the  further  recognition  that  uses  are  progressive.  Let 
it  be  insisted  once  more,  however,  that  the  definition  is  not  pro- 
posed as  an  explanation  of  teleology  in  the  world's  processes, 
but  as  a  generalization  from  facts  which  we  can,  in  wisdom, 
neither  overlook  nor  explain  away.  While  no  attempt  has  been 
made  to  question  the  right  of  any  science  to  employ  the  cate- 
gories it  finds  best  adapted  to  its  specific  aims,  the  attempt  has 
been  made  to  justify  metaphysics  in  the  employment  of  the  cate- 
gory of  use. 

IV 

There  are,  doubtless,  various  applications  of  the  general 
definition  of  natural  teleology  which  has  been  here  proposed. 
These  lie  outside  the  scope  of  this  discussion.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  special  instance  of  teleology  which  may  serve  to  throw 
the  definition  into  sharper  relief,  and  which  aftords  inquiries 
of  special  interest — the  teleology  of  consciousness.  That  it  is 
useful  to  be  conscious  is  palpably  evident  in  spite  of  the  diffi- 


NATURAL   TELEOLOGY  323 

culties  one  may  encounter  in  defining  just  how  thought  can  change 
the  world.  These  difficulties  cannot  obscure  the  significance  to 
be  attached  to  these  moments  in  the  world's  history  when  its 
teleology  becomes  a  conscious  teleology  and  is  reflectively  con- 
sidered. The  significance  may  at  first  be  emotional.  Con- 
sciousness may  be  a  "lyric  cry" — to  adapt  Professor  Santayana's 
phrase  —  involving  joy  over  discovered  uses  or  sorrow  over 
frustrated  aims.  But  the  deeper  significance  lies  evidently  in 
the  direction  of  foresight  and  knowledge.  To  anticipate  advan- 
tage or  disadvantage,  and  to  know  the  means  by  which  the  one 
may  be  gained  and  the  other  avoided,  presents  the  most  signal 
instance  of  natural  teleology  that  can  be  cited. 

The  conception  of  a  world  like  ours  in  all  respects  save  the 
presence  of  thought  has  already  been  suggested  as  philosophic- 
ally warranted.  Such  a  world  would  have  a  past  and  a  future, 
and  its  history  would  display  the  facts  of  comparative  use  and 
progressive  adaptation  which  have  been  embodied  in  the  general 
definition  of  natural  teleology.  Yet  it  would  appear  to  be  im- 
possible to  assign  to  these  facts  or  to  the  past  and  the  future 
any  characteristic  efficiency.  This  statement  does  not  mean 
that  such  a  world  would  lack  continuity  in  its  development, 
that  any  given  factor  in  it  would  be  what  it  is  irrespective  of  its 
past,  or  that  its  future  would  be  out  of  relation  to  other  future 
factors.  But  it  does  mean  that  the  teleology  in  such  a  world 
would  be  only  a  characteristic  of  it,  indicating  the  appropria- 
tion of  use,  but  that  this  characteristic  would  not  be  de- 
tached from  the  specific  instances  of  its  operation  and  thus  be- 
come itself  a  factor  in  that  world's  processes.  This,  after  all, 
is  but  a  way  of  saying  that  a  world  so  conceived  lacks  conscious- 
ness, that  its  processes  go  on  uncomplicated  by  any  recognition 
of  their  uses,  actual,  prospective,  or  retrospective.  Yet  it  may 
serve  to  indicate  the  kind  of  complication  which  the  presence 
of  consciousness  introduces.  The  spider  may  spin  its  web  un- 
consciously and  produce  thereby  a  product  useful  to  it;  but  if  it. 
spins  consciously,  the  past  and  future  have  entered  into  its  ac- 
tivity in  a  new  and  significant  manner.  It  may  even  be  led  tO' 
contemplate  the  miserable  fate  of  its  prey.  Without  conscious- 
ness, yesterday  is  only  to-day's  past,  to-morrow  only  to-day's 
possible  future.     With  consciousness  to-day's  changes  occur  in 


324  NATURAL  TELEOLOGY 

view  of  yesterday  and  of  the  possible  to-morrow.  With  con- 
sciousness the  processes  of  the  world  become  at  once  retrospec- 
tive and  prospective  in  their  operation. 

There  is,  therefore,  design  in  the  world.  Only,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  design  may  not  be  invoked  to  explain  the  world's  teleology, 
because  it  is  one  instance  of  that  teleology.  But  the  fact  that  it 
is  such  makes  it  unnecessary  to  seek  further  for  the  ground  of 
moral  distinctions  or  for  a  rational  confidence  that  nature  is 
sufficient  for  the  demands  design  may  make  upon  it.  Responsi- 
bility is  not  imposed  from  without.  It  arises  from  no  authori- 
tative command.  It  is,  rather,  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
design.  For  to  plan  and  put  the  plan  in  operation  is  to  become 
the  cause  of  the  issuing  result,  the  point  where  responsibility 
is  definitely  lodged.  So  we  do  not  hold  rocks  responsible  be- 
cause they  fall,  but  we  do  hold  men  responsible  because  they  think. 
Because  they  think  to-day  is  changed  in  view  of  yesterday  and  to- 
morrow, and  consciousness  being  the  possibility  of  such  a  change 
takes  upon  itself  the  thoughtful  construction  of  the  issue  in  the 
light  of  the  world's  natural  teleology.  That  is  the  essence  of 
morality.  Man  was  not  made  moral  by  the  prohibition  of  an 
apple.  The  fruit  was  good  to  eat,  and  the  conscious  discovery 
of  its  use  turned  man  into  a  designing  being.  Thereafter  he 
must  learn  the  natural  uses  of  things  and  turn  them  to  his  ad- 
vantage, but  at  the  risk  of  reciprocal  demands.  Thus,  with  con- 
sciousness, the  world's  teleology  is  a  moral  teleology.  Given 
the  world,  which  is  not  that  world  unillumined  by  thought 
which  philosophy  in  its  freedom  may  imagine,  but  a  world  among 
whose  factors  conscious  beings  must  be  numbered  as  instances 
of  its  productivity,  these  beings  may  not  be  surprised  that  their 
world  is  moral.  Its  moral  character  impresses  them  as  again 
something  necessary,  something  for  the  absence  of  which  they 
can  discover  no  reason.  What  the  sun  is  to  the  movements  of 
the  planets,  that  justice  is  to  the  movements  of  design. 

Perfect  justice,  like  perfect  equilibrium,  may  be  unattainable, 
but  justice  is  not  a  visionary  ideal,  unsupported  by  the  teleology 
from  which  it  arises.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  uses  are  specific, 
cumulative,  and  of  comparative  value  in  their  operations.  Jus- 
tice has,  therefore,  for  its  exercise,  not  only  the  distinction  of  the 
useful  and  the  useless,  the  good  and  the  bad,  but  also  the  dis- 


NATURAL  TELEOLOGY  325 

tinction  of  the  better  and  the  worse.  Accordingly,  while  de- 
sign may  despair  of  success  in  eliminating  evil,  it  ought  not  to 
despair  of  success  in  attempting  to  achieve  the  better.  For  these 
attempts  are  supported  by  the  world's  natural  teleology,  by  the 
comparative  value  of  the  uses  of  things.  Knowledge  thus  min- 
isters to  morality  in  a  twofold  manner,  by  the  localizing  of  re- 
sponsibility and  by  the  conscious  discovering  of  the  more  useful. 
The  end  of  such  discovery  is  most  evidently  beyond  our  vision. 
Every  new^  scrutiny  of  the  world's  uses  reveals  new  and  unsus- 
pected possibilities,  and  warrants  the  conviction  that  the  better 
is  attainable  and  attainable  with  a  diminution  of  injustice. 
The  world  may  not  have  had  its  origin  in  reason,  moral  progress 
in  it  may  waver,  great  gains  may  there  be  lost,  and  civilization 
go  backward,  but  the  world  affords  of  itself  the  vision  of  its  own 
rational  conquest.  To  fix  responsibility  and  to  promote  science 
appear  thus  to  be  the  primary  essentials  of  moral  progress.  To 
entertain,  therefore,  the  vision  of  the  world's  rational  conquest 
is  not  to  be  an  optimist  by  temperament,  but  an  optimist  by  con- 
viction. We  may  not  proclaim  out  of  an  abundance  of  well- 
being  that  this  is  the  best  possible  world  and  that  all  things 
work  together  for  good.  For  the  moral  lesson  of  natural  tele- 
ology is  that  the  world  can  be  improved.  Ours  is  the  best  possi- 
ble world  only  because  it  has  the  capacity  to  engender  and  support 
the  effort  to  make  it  better. 

Yet  enthusiasm  is  not  to  be  denied  to  philosophy.  To  en- 
visage the  world  in  the  light  of  reason  is  to  beget  emotions  for 
which  the  impersonal  categories  of  knowledge  afford  inadequate 
expression.  These  emotions,  too,  are  natural,  responses  to 
provoking  stimuli  as  much  as  the  vibrating  chord  to  the  finger's 
touch.  INIan  may,  therefore,  sing  the  praises  of  nature  and  be 
devout  or  fearful  in  her  presence,  for  to  personify  her  is  but  to 
accord  her  the  filial  recognition  that  persons  are  her  offspring, 
born  of  her  body,  and  nourished  at  her  breasts.  To  refuse 
emotional  responses  to  her  revelations  because  they  do  not  in- 
volve an  explanation  of  her  origin  or  of  her  destiny,  is  not  the 
sign  of  wisdom,  but  of  insensibility.  For  the  contemplation  of 
the  stars  has  other  natural  uses  besides  the  advancement  of 
astronomy. 

Indeed,  man  can  hardly  be  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  nature 


326  NATURAL    TELEOLOGY 

evokes  from  him  emotional  responses  as  well  as  intellectual 
curiosity.  But  it  is  impossible  for  him  so  to  divorce  emotion  and 
reason  that  his  thinking  and  his  feeling  may  remain  unrelated 
and  independent  activities.  For  consciousness  is  comprehensive 
in  its  scope,  including  in  its  survey  the  fact  that  we  live  fully  as 
much  as  the  fact  that  we  fall.  It  is  also  reflective,  embracing, 
as  we  are  wont  to  say,  its  own  operations  as  something  of  which 
it  also  takes  cognizance.  This  is,  however,  only  the  afiirmation 
that  consciousness  is  consciousness,  that  the  existence  of  facts  is 
not  the  considering  of  them.  But  it  serves  again  to  render  con- 
spicuous the  particular  use  to  be  assigned  to  consciousness,  the 
use  of  rendering  the  past  and  the  future  connectable  and  con- 
tinuous now.  It  is  creative  of  nothing  but  comprehension,  and 
is  subservient  to  the  materials  it  finds.  Its  task  is  thus  the  ra- 
tional organization  of  this  material  in  its  entirety.  While,  there- 
fore, its  exercise  may  discover  emotions,  we  may  not  say  that  it 
is  because  we  are  conscious  that  we  rejoice  or  fear,  just  as  we  may 
not  say  that  it  is  because  we  are  conscious  that  we  have  a  certain 
specific  gravity.  The  emotional  life  presents  itself,  thus,  as  one 
object  for  intelligent  control  and  organization.  But  it  does  pre- 
sent itself  as  such  an  object.  To  claim,  therefore,  that  teleology 
is  natural  and  that  consciousness  is  its  most  signal  illustration, 
is  not  thoughtlessly  to  discard  the  obligation  to  seek  for  the  emo- 
tional life  its  appropriate  support  and  the  befitting  sphere  of  its 
operation.  It  is,  rather,  to  urge  that  the  search  be  conducted 
with  an  intensified  appreciation  of  the  immediate  sources  by 
which  that  life  is  quickened  and  refined. 

Columbia  University, 
July,  1910. 


XXIV 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CONTAINING  A  LIST  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  WRITINGS  OF  THE 
REV.  PROFESSOR  CHARLES  A.  BRIGGS,  D.D.,  D.LITT. 

It  is  not  an  easy  task  to  make  a  complete  collection  of  the 
titles  of  the  writings  of  a  man  as  prolific  as  Dr.  Briggs,  one 
whose  interests  are  manifold,  and  whose  pen  has  been  active 
ever  since  his  student  days.  The  list  which  follows  does  not 
lay  claim  to  exhaustiveness.  Doubtless  some  titles  have  escaped 
the  eye  of  the  compiler.  No  attempt  has  been  made  to  include 
editorial  articles  contributed  to  The  Evangelist,  or  book-reviews 
printed  in  the  Presbyterian  Review  and  other  periodicals,  with  a 
single  exception.  Most  of  the  material  has  been  obtained  in  the 
library  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  of  which  the  com- 
piler was  librarian  for  twenty-five  years.  Even  if  the  list  should 
prove  to  be  defective  in  some  particulars,  that  which  is  given 
will  serve  to  indicate  the  range  of  Dr.  Briggs's  writings,  and  to 
show  that  his  studies  have  covered  many  fields.  This  contribu- 
tion to  a  memorial  volume  is  submitted  with  the  filial  devotion 
of  a  former  pupil,  the  admiration  of  a  colleague,  and  above  all 
the  deep  love  of  a  personal  friend. 

Charles  R.  Gillett. 

Union  Theological  Seminary. 
August  29,  1910. 

1868 

Justification  by  Faith  in  Christ.  By  Dr.  J.  A.  Dorner. 
Translated  by  C.  A.  Briggs. 

In  The  American  Presbyterian  and  Theological  Review.  New  Series:  Vol  6, 
1868.     Pp.  186-214.     8vo.     New  York:  Sherwood. 

327 


328  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1869 
New  German  Works  on  Theology. 

In  The  American  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  1,  1869.  Pp.  774-780.  8vo. 
New  York:  Sherwood. 

Recent  German  Works. 

In  The  American  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  1,  1869.  Pp.  401-406.  Svo. 
New  York:  Sherwood. 

Theological  and  Literary  Intelligence:    Germany.     (Notes  on 

German  Universities,  etc.) 

In  The  American  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  1,  1869.  Pp.  419-422;  800- 
803.     8vo.     New  York:  Sherwood. 

1870 

Biblical  Theology,  with  especial  reference  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

In  The  American  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  2,  1870.  Pp.  105-133;  293- 
306.     8vo.     New  York:  Sherwood. 

German  Theological  Literature. 

In  The  American  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  2,  1870.  Pp.  170-176;  364- 
367;  560-562.     8vo.     New  York:  Sherwood. 

1872 

The   Psalms.     By   Carl    Bernhard   Moll,    D.D.     Translated 

from  the  German,  with  Additions,  by  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs, 

Rev.  John  Forsyth,  D.D.,  Rev.  James  B.  Hammond,  Rev.  J. 

Fred  McCurdy;    Together  with  a  new  Version  of  the  Psalms 

and  philological  notes  by  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Conant,  D.D. 

In  Lange's  Commentary:  Old  Testament  series,  Vol.  IX.  New  York: 
Scribner.     (1872).     8vo.     Pp.  ii,  816. 

1876 

Address  (on  Exegetical  Theology)  ...  on  occasion  of  his 
Inauguration  as  Davenport  Professor  of  Hebrew  and  the  Cog- 
nate Languages  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New 
York  City. 

New  York:  Rogers  and  Sherwood.     1876.     Svo.     Pp.  30. 

1877 
The    Book    of    Ezra.     Theologically    and    homiletically    ex- 
pounded, by  Fr,  W.  Schultz,  Professor  in  Ordinary  of  Theology 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  329 

in   the  University  of  Breslau,  Prussia.     Translated,  enlarged, 
and  edited  by . 

New  York:  Scribner.     (1877).     8vo.     Pp.  (1),  100. 

Exegetical  Theology,  especially  of  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  Presbrjterian  Quarterly  and  Princeton  Review.     Vol.  6,  1877.     Pp. 
5-29.     8vo.     New  York:  Sherwood. 

The  Languages  of  the  Bible. 

In  "God's  Word  Man's  Light  and  Guide."    New  York:   American  Tract 
Society.     (1877).     Pp.  39-76.     12mo. 

1S79 
Origin  and  History  of  Premillenarianism. 

In  The  Lutheran  Quarterly  Review.     Vol.  9,   1879.     Pp.  207-245.     8vo. 
Gettysburg:  Wible. 

1880 

The  Documentary  History  of  the  Westminster  Assembly. 

In   The  Presbi/terian  Review.     Vol.    1,    1880.     Pp.    127-163.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

An  Exegesis  of  Exodus  xxxiv,  29-35. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   1,   1880.     Pp.   565-566.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

The  General  Synod  of  the  Evangelical  Church  of  Prussia. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   1,    1880.     Pp.    169-170.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

The  Robertson  Smith  Case. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.    Vol.   1,   1880.     Pp.  737-745.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

1881 

Critical  Theories  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  in  relation  to  their 
Inspiration. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   2,   1881.     Pp.   550-579.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

Hebrew  Poetry. 

In  The  Homiletic  Quarterly.     Vol.  5,  1881.     Pp.  398-404;    535-542.     8vo. 
London:  Kegan  Paul. 

The  Provincial  Assembly  of  London,  1647-1660. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.  2,  1881.     Pp.  54-79.     8vo.     New  York: 
Randolph. 


330  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Second  General  Council  of  the  "  Alliance  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  throughout  the  World  holding  the  Presbyterian 
System." 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  2,  1881.  Pp.  169-174.  Svo.  New 
York:  Randolph. 

1882 

Argument  e  silentio  with  special  reference  to  the  Religion  of 

Israel. 

In  The  Journal  of  Religious  Literature  and  Exegesis.  Vol.  3,  1882.  Pp. 
3-21.     Svo.     Boston:   Society  of  Biblical  Literature  and  Exegesis. 

C  Biblical  Theology. 
In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   3,   1882.     Pp.  503-528.     8vo.     New 
ork:  Randolph. 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 

United  States  of  America:  1882. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  3,  1882.  Pp.  589-601.  8vo.  New 
York:  Randolph. 

The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible. 

In  The  Hebrew  Student.  Vol.  2,  1882.  Pp.  65-77.  8vo.  Chicago: 
Hebrew  Book  Exchange. 

The  Recently  Discovered  Inscription  at  the  Pool  of  Siloam. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  3,  1882.  Pp.  401-404.  Svo.  New 
York:  Randolph. 

Robertson  Smith's  Prophets  of  Israel. 

In  The  Hebrew  Student.  Vol.  2,  1882.  Pp.  8-14.  Svo.  Chicago:  He- 
brew Book  Exchange. 

1883 

The  Biblical  Millennium. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  35,  1883.  Pp.  1029-1030.  Fol.  New  York: 
The  Independent. 

Biblical  Study:  its  Principles,  Methods,  and  History.  To- 
gether with  a  catalogue  of  Books  of  Reference. 

New  York:  Scribner,  October  11,  1883.  Pp.  xv,  506.  P.  Svo.  (Re- 
printed in  April,  1884;  April,  1885;  February  and  October,  1887;  October, 
1889;  May  and  November,  1891;   August,  1892;   and  January,  1894.) 

CA  Critical  Study  of  the  History  of  the  Higher  Criticism  with 
special  reference  to  the  Pentateuch. 
In    The   Presbyterian   Review.     Vol.    4,    1883.     Pp.    69-130.     Svo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  331 

Editorial  Statement  (on  Biblical  Criticism). 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   4,    1883.     Pp.   425-428.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

The  Greater  Book  of  the  Covenant. 

In   The  Hebrew  Student.     Vol.   2,    1883.     Pp.   289-303.     8vo.     Chicago: 
Hebrew  Book  Exchange. 

The   Interpretation   of  Scripture.     Opening   Lecture,   Union 
Theological  Seminary,  September  20,  1883. 
Incorporated  in  "Biblical  Study."     1883. 

Journal  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Literature  and  Exegesis. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.  4,   1883.     Pp.   638-639.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

The  Little  Book  of  the  Covenant. 

In   The  Hebrew  Student.     Vol.   2,    1883.     Pp.   264-272.     8vo.     Chicago: 
Hebrew  Book  Exchange. 

The  Millennium. 

In   The   Independent.     Vol.   35,    1883.     Pp.   931-932.     Fol.     New   York: 
The  Independent. 

The  Tract  Baba  Bathra  of  the  Talmud  and  the  Old  Testament. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   4,    1883.     Pp.   417-420.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

1884 

Correspondence  between  Richard  Baxter  and  Thomas  Gataker 

with  reference  to  the  Salvation  of  Baptized  Children. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   5,   1884.     Pp.   700-711.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

Edwin  Francis  Hatfield. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.  5,   1884.     Pp.   125-131.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 

English  Puritans  in  New  York  City  in  the  Seventeenth  Century. 

In   The  Independent.     Vol.   36,    1884.     P.    134.     Fol.     New  York:     The 
Independent. 

The  Hebrew  Poem  of  the  Creation. 

In  The  Old  Testament  Student.     Vol.  3,  1884.     Pp.  273-288.     8vo.   Chicago: 
American  Publication  Society  of  Hebrew. 

The  Principles  of  Puritanism. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.  5,   1884.     Pp.   656-675.     8vo.     New 
York:  Randolph. 


332  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Third  General  Council  of  the  Alliance  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  throughout  the  World  holding  the  Presbyterian 
System:  1SS4. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  5,  1884.  Pp.  330-337;  690-700.  8vo. 
New  York:  Randolph. 

Tyndale's  Pentateuch. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  5,  1884.  P.  131.  8vo.  New  York: 
Randolph. 

1885 

American  Presbyterianism:  its  Origin  and  Early  History.  To- 
gether with  an  Appendix  of  Letters  and  Documents,  many  of 
which  have  recently  been  discovered.     With  maps. 

New  York:   Scribner.     April  4,  1885.     Pp.  xviii,  373,  cxlii.     P.  8vo. 

The  Great  Awakening. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  37,  1885.  P.  323.  Fol.  New  York:  The 
Independent. 

The  New  Organization  for  Elementary  Instruction  in  Hebrew. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  6,  1885.  Pp.  134-136.  8vo.  New 
York:  Presbyterian  Review  Association. 

The  Poem  of  the  Fall  of  Man. 

In  The  Reformed  Quarterly  Review.  Vol.  32,  1885.  Pp.  311-333.  8vo. 
Philadelphia:  Reformed  Church  Publication  Board. 

Puritanism  in  New  York:    its  Origin  and  Growth  until  the 

middle  of  the  XVIII  Century. 

In  The  Magazine  of  American  History.  Vol.  13,  1885.  Pp.  39-58.  8vo. 
New  York:  Historical  Publication  Company. 

The  Revised  English  Version  of  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  6,  1885.  Pp.  486-533.  8vo,  New 
York:  Presbyterian  Review  Association. 

Scholarship  by  Vote. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  37,  1885.  P.  1099.  Fol.  New  York:  The 
Independent. 

More  Scholarship  by  Votes. 

In  The  Independent.     Vol.  37,   1885.     P.  1258.     Fol.     New  York:    The 
(__Independent. 

A  Short  Declaration  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  by  way  of 

detestation  of  the  Doctrine  j;hat  God  is  the  Author  of  Sin. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  6,  1885.  Pp.  315-318.  8vo.  New- 
York:  Presbyterian  Review  Association. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  333 

The  Song  of  Hannah. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  G,  1885.  Pp.  112-114.  Svo.  New 
York:  Presbyterian  Review  Association. 

Thomas  Cartwright's  Letter  to  his  Sister-in-law  to  dissuade 

her  from  Brownism. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  6,  1885,  Pp.  101-111.  Svo.  New 
York:  Presbyterian  Review  Association. 

The  Wiclif  Quincentenary. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  6,  1885.  Pp.  136-138.  8vo.  New 
York:  Presbyterian  Review  Association. 

The  Attitude  of  the  Revised  Version  toward  the  Textual  Criti- 
cism of  the  Old  Testament. 

In  Hebraica.  Vol.  2,  1885-8G.  Pp.  65-78.  8vo.  Chicago:  American 
Publication  Society  of  Hebrew. 

1886 
The  Discussion  of  the  Revised  Version  of  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  7,  1886.  Pp.  369-378.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

Evangelization. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  7,  1886.  Pp.  161-164.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

Hebrew  Poetry. 

In  Hebraica.  Vol.  2,  1885-86.  Pp.  164-170.  8vo.  Chicago:  American 
Publication  Society  of  Hebrew. 

James  Eells. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  7,  1886.  P.  357.  8vo.  New  York: 
Scribner. 

Messianic  Prophecy.  The  Prediction  of  the  Fulfilment  of 
Redemption  through  the  Messiah.  A  critical  Study  of  the  Mes- 
sianic Passages  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  Order  of  their 
Development. 

New  York:  Scribner.  October  28,  1886.  Pp.  xx,  519.  Svo.  (Reprinted 
in  June,  1889;  December,  1890;  March,  1891;  August,  1892;  July,  1893; 
December,  1894;  December,  1897;  and  April,  1902,  and  translated  into 
Japanese.) 

1887 
The  Barriers  to  Christian  Union. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  8,  1887.  Pp.  441-471.  Svo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 


334  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Genesis  of  the  Ten  Words. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.    Vol.  29,  1887.    Pp.  355-356.     Fol.    Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

Rupertus  Meldenius  and  his  Word  of  Peace. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   8,    1887.     Pp.   743-746.     8vo.     New 
York:  Scribner. 

The  Strophical  Organization  of  Hebrew  Trimeters. 

In    Hebraica.     Vol.    3,     1886-87.      Pp.    152-165.      8vo.      New     Haven: 
Hebraica. 

The  Ten  Words. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.    Vol.  29,  1887.    Pp.  338-339.    Fol.     Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

Terms  of  Christian  Union. 

In   The  Christian   Union.     Vol.   35,   1887.     Pp.   8-9.     Fol.     New  York: 
Christian  Union. 

Was  Vesey  a  Puritan  Minister? 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   8,    1887.     Pp.  491-496.     8vo.     New 
York:  Scribner. 

The  Westminster  Doctrine  of  the  Salvation  of  Infants. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   8,    1887.     Pp.   316-325.     8vo.     New 
York:  Scribner. 

The  Work  of  John  Durie  in  behalf  of  Christian  Union  in  the 

Seventeenth  Century. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.   8,   1887.     Pp.  297-309.     8vo.     New 
York:  Scribner. 

An  Ancient  Type  of  Presbyterianism. 

In  The  Independent.    Vol.  40,  1888.    Pp.  833-834.     New  York:  The  Inde- 
pendent. 

1888 

The  Apocal}^se  of  Jesus. 

In   The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.  9,    1888.     Pp.   263-284.     8vo.     New 
York:  Scribner. 

The  Christian  Evidences:  How  affected  by  Recent  Criticisms? 

In  The  Homiletical  Review.     Vol.  15,  1888.     Pp.  9-14.     8vo.     New  York: 
Funk  and  Wagnalls. 

The  Hebrew  Hexameter. 

In  Hebraica.     Vol.  4,  1887-88.     Pp.  201-205.     8vo.     New  Haven:    He- 
braica. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  335 

The  Hebrew  Pentameter. 

In  Hebraica.  Vol.  4,  1887-88.  Pp.  129-139.  8vo.  New  Haven: 
Hebraica. 

The  Hebrew  Tetrameter. 

In  Hebraica.     Vol.  4,  1887-88.     Pp.  65-74.     8vo.     New  Haven:  Hebraica. 

The  Lambeth  Conference  of  Bishops  of  the  AngHcan  Com- 
munion. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  9,  1888.  Pp.  657-659.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

The  Messiah  of  the  Gospels. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.  Vol.  30,  1888.  Pp.  338-340.  Fol.  Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

The  New  Theory  of  the  Apocalypse. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  9,  1888.  Pp.  109-115.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

The  Offerings  of  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.  Vol.  30,  1888.  Pp.  451-452.  Fol.  Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

The  One  Hundredth  General  Assembly. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  9,  1888.  Pp.  128-136.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

A  Plea  for  an  American  Alliance  of  the  Reformed  Churches. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  9,  1888.  Pp.  306-309.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

Thomas  Cartwright's  Letter  to  Arthur  Hildersam  on  the  Study 

of  Divinity. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol  9,  1888.  Pp.  116-121.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

Union  of  Northern  and  Southern  Presbyterians. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  40,  1888.  Pp.  515-516.  Fol.  New  York:  The 
Independent. 

1889 

Biblical  History.  A  lecture  delivered  at  the  Opening  of  the 
Term  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  September  19, 
1889.     With  an  Appendi.x. 

New  York:  Scribner.  October  22,  1889.  Pp.  45.  P.  8vo.  (Reprinted, 
October,  1890.) 


336  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Christian  Guilds. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.  Vol.  31,  1889.  Pp.  99-100.  Fol.  Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 
United  States  of  America. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  10,  1889.  Pp.  464-474.  8vo.  New- 
York:  Scribner. 

/       The  Higher  Criticism  and  its  Results. 

1         In  The  Congregationalist.     February  21,  1889.    Boston:    The  Congrega- 

1     tionalist. 

The  Lament  of  David  over  Saul  and  Jonathan. 
In  The  Sunday  School  Times.     Vol.  31,  1889.     Pp.  563-564.     Fol.     Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

The  Last  Words  of  David. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.  Vol.  31,  1889.  Pp.  961.  Fol.  Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

Ministerial  Education. 

In  The  Presbyterian  Review.  Vol.  10,  1889.  Pp.  107-115.  8vo.  New 
York:  Scribner. 

"~     The  New  Creed  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  England. 
In  The  Evangelist.     October  31,  1889.     New  York:  The  Evangelist. 
Redemption  after  Death. 

In  The  Magazine  of  Christian  Literature.  Vol.  1,  1889.  Pp.  105-116. 
8vo.     New  York:  Christian  Literature  Company. 

Songs  of  the  Angels. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.  Vol.  31,  1889.  Pp.  819-820.  Fol.  Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

The  Study  of  the  English  Bible  in  Theological  Seminaries. 
In  The  Presbyterian  Review.     Vol.  10,  1889.     Pp.  294-300.     8vo.     New 
York:  Scribner. 

The  Terms  of  Subscription  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  U.  S.  A. 
In  The  Independent.     Vol.  41,  1889.     Pp.  1528-1529.     Fol.     New  York: 
The  Independent. 

The  Westminster  Confession  and  the  Traditional  Dogma. 

In  The  Christian  Union.  Vol.  40,  1889.  Pp.  417-418.  Fol.  New  York: 
Christian  Union. 

The    Westminster    Creed.     The    Difficulty    with    the   Third 

Chapter. 

In  The  Christian  Union.  Vol.  40,  1889.  Pp.  562-563.  Fol.  New  York: 
Christian  Union. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  337 

The  Westminster  Standards.    How  far  they  have  been  revised. 

In   The  Independent.     Vol.  41,   1889.     P.  850.     Fol.     New  York:    The 
Independent. 

The  Westminster  Standards:  II.     The  DiflBculty. 

In   The  Independent.     Vol.   41,   1889.     Pp.  946-947.     Fol.     New  York: 
The  Independent. 

The  Westminster  Standards:  III.     Methods  of  Relief. 

In  The  Independent.     Vol.  41,  1889.     P.  979.     Fol.     New  York:  The  In- 
dependent. 

What  Shall  We  Revise? 

In  The  Christian  Union.     Vol.  40,  1889.     Pp.  525-526.     Fol.     New  York: 
Christian  Union. 

Whither?    A  Theological  Question  for  the  Times. 

New  York:  Scribner.     September  14,  1889.     Pp.  xv,  303.     P.  8vo.     (Re- 
printed, October,  1889;  and  Februray,  1890.) 

1890 

The  Advance  Towards  Revision. 

That  Tenth  Chapter. 

The  Confession  Tested  by  Scripture. 

In  "  How  Shall  We  Revise?    A  Bundle  of  Papers."    New  York:  Scribner. 
May  7,  1890.     12mo.     Pp.  vii,  214. 

Church  Unity. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.    Vol.  32,  1890.     Pp.  386-388.    Fol.     Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

The  Message  of  John  the  Baptist. 

In  The  Sunday  School  Times.     Vol.  32,  1890.     Pp.  67-68.     Fol.     Phila- 
delphia: Wattles. 

The  Middle  State  in  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  HomiLeticaL  Review.     Vol.  19,  1890.     Pp.  20-25.     8vo.    New  York: 
Funk  and  Wagnalls. 

The  Middle  State  in  the  New  Testament. 

In  The  Homiletical  Review.     Vol.  19,   1890.     Pp.   106-112.     8vo.     New 
York:  Funk  and  Wagnalls. 

Have  the  Quakers  Prevailed? 

In    Bibliotheca    Sacra.     Vol.    47,    1890.     Pp.    325-352.     8vo.     Oberlin: 
Goodrich. 


338  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Revision  of  the  Westminster  Confession.     (Address  before  the 

Presbyterian  Union  of  New  York;  enlarged.) 

In    The   Andover   Review.     Vol.    13,    1890.     Pp.    45-68.     8vo.    Boston: 
Houghton,  Miflain  &  Co. 

The  Votes  of  the  Presbyteries  (on  Confessional  Revision). 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  42,  1890.  P.  611.  Fol.  New  York:  The  In- 
dependent. 

The  Westminster  Confession  and  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  42,  1890.  Pp.  689-690,  724-725.  Fol.  New 
York:  The  Independent. 

1891 

C      The  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology  in  the 

Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York.     (Inaugural  Address 

Lon  "The  Authority  of  Holy  Scripture".) 

Printed  for  the  Union  Theological  Seminary:  New  York.  MDCCCXCI. 
Pp.  (3),  84.     8vo. 

LAn  Answer  to  Dr.  Shedd's  Criticism. 
In  The  New  York  Tribune.    November  5,  1891.     New  York:  The  Tribune. 

The  Authority  of  Holy  Scripture.     An  Inaugural  Address. 

Second  Edition,  with  Preface  and  Appendix  containing  additional 

notes  and  explanations. 

New  York:  Scribner.  March  6, 1891.  Pp.  (1),  111.  P.8vo.  (Reprinted, 
twice  in  March,  April,  twice  in  May,  October,  1891;  and  February,  1893.) 

The  Authority  of  Holy  Scripture.  An  Inaugural  Address. 
Third  Edition,  with  Preface,  an  Appendix  containing  additional 
notes  and  explanations,  the  Charges  of  Heresy,  and  the  Re- 
sponse thereto  before  the  Presbytery  of  New  York. 

New  York:  Scribner.     1891.     Pp.  (5),  161.     P.  8vo. 

The  Higher  Criticism.     The  Old  Testament  as  read  in  its 

light.     An  Address,  at  the  League  of  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn, 

N.  Y.     December  15,  1890. 

In  The  Christian  Union.  Vol.  43,  1891.  Pp.  306-307;  338-339.  Fol. 
New  York:  Christian  Union. 

Response  to  the  Charges  and  Specifications  submitted  to  the 

Presbytery  of  New  York. 

No  imprint.  Dated,  November  4,  1891.  Pp.  34.  P.  8vo.  Reprinted  in 
The  Andover  Review.  Vol.  16,  1891.  Pp.  623-639.  8vo.  Boston:  Hough- 
ton, Mifflin  &  Co. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  339 

Syllabus  (of  the  Inaugural  Address  on  "The  Authority  of 

Holy  Scripture"). 

Reprinted  in  The  Magazine  of  Christian  Literature.  Vol.  3,  1891.  Pp. 
430-434    8vo.     New  York:  The  Christian  Literature  Co. 

The  Theological  Crisis. 

In  The  North  American  Review.  Vol.  153,  1891.  Pp.  99-114.  8vo.  New 
York:  North  American  Review. 

1892 

The  Best  Book  of  th    Year. 

In  The  North  American  Re  iew.  Vol.  154,  1892.  Pp.  103-107.  8vo. 
New  York:  North  American  Revew. 

The  Bible,  the  Church,  and  the  Reason.    The  Three  Great 

Fountains  of  Authority. 

New  York:  Scribner.  April  16,  1892.  8vo.  Pp.  xiii,  298.  (Reprinted, 
March,  1893.) 

The  Case  against  Professor  Briggs.  I.  The  Charges  and 
Specifications  Submitted  to  the  Presbytery  of  New  York,  October 
5,  1891.  II.  Response  of  Professor  Briggs  to  the  Charges  and 
Specifications,  November  4,  1891.  III.  Action  of  the  Presbytery 
of  New  York  in  Dismissing  the  Case.  IV.  The  Complaint  to 
the  Synod  of  New  York  Against  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  for 
Its  Decision  of  the  Question  of  the  Original  Party  of  Prosecution, 
November  13, 1891.  V.  The  Appeal  of  the  so-called  Prosecuting 
Committee  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  United  States  of  America,  November  13,  1891.  VI.  The 
Argument  of  Professor  Briggs  before  the  General  Assembly 
Against  Entertaining  the  Appeal,  May  26,  1892.  VII.  The 
Entertainment  of  the  Appeal,  May  27,  1892.  VIII.  The  Argu- 
ment of  Professor  Briggs  Before  the  General  Assembly  Against 
Sustaining  the  Appeal,  May  27  and  28,  1892.  IX.  The  Action 
of  the  General  Assembly  in  Sustaining  the  Appeal  and  Reversing 
the  Dismissal  of  the  Case. 

New  York:  Scribner.  August  27,  1892.  Pp.  (5),  171.  P.  8vo.  (Re- 
printed, January,  1893.) 

The  Defence  of  Professor  Briggs  before  the  Presbytery  of 

New  York,  December  13,  14,  15  and  19,  1892. 

New  York:  Scribner.  1892.  Pp.  xx,  193.  P.  8vo.  (Reprinted,  twice 
in  January,  1893.) 


1 


340  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Evidence  Submitted  to  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  by 
Professor  Briggs,  December  5,  1892. 

(New  York:   1892).     Pp.  1-31,  216-247.     P.  8vo. 

f — ^he  Future  of  Religion  in  America. 

1  In  The  Review  of  the  Churches.  London.  July,  1892.  Reprinted  in  The 
\  Magazine  of  Christian  Literature.  VoL  7,  1892.  Pp.  425-432.  8vo.  New 
lYprk:  Christian  Literature  Co. 

The  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch. 

(New  York:  Jenkins,  Printer.)  Pp.  (1),  238.  P.  8vo.  (Distributed  to 
Presbytery.) 

Professor  Briggs  on  Moderator  Young. 

In  The  Magazine  of  Christian  Literature.  VoL  7,  1892.  Pp.  50-51.  8vo. 
New  York:  Christian  Literature  Co.  Reprinted  from  The  Presbyterian 
Journal,  Philadelphia,  September  8,  1892. 

The  Proposed  Revision  of  the  Westminster  Confession. 

In  The  Andover  Review.  Vol.  18,  1892.  Pp.  124-138.  8vo.  Boston: 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

Theological  Education  and  Its  Needs. 

In  The  Forum.  Vol.  12,  1892.  Pp.  634-645.  8vo.  New  York:  The 
Forum. 

Who  Wrote  the  Pentateuch?  (Original  copy  placed  before 
the  Presbytery  of  New  York;  being  the  Argument  on  Charge  IV 
in  printed  form,  December  15,  1892.) 

(New  York:  Scribner.     1892.)     P.  238.     P.  8vo. 

rl893 
The  Alienation  of  Church  and  People. 
In  The  Forum.     Vol.  16,   1893.     Pp.  366-378.     8vo.     New  York:    The 
Forum. 

The  Bible,  the  Church,  and  the  Reason.     The  Three  Great 
Fountains  of  Divine  Authority.     Second  edition. 
New  York:  Scribner.     1893.     P.  8vo.     Pp.  xiii.  298. 

The  Case  Against  Professor  Briggs.  Part  II.  I.  The  Pre- 
liminary Objection  of  Professor  Briggs  to  the  Status  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Prosecution,  November  9,  1892;  the  Action  of  the 
Presbytery  of  New  York  Thereon;  and  the  Complaint  of  Pro- 
fessor Briggs  to  the  Synod  of  New  York.  II.  The  Amended 
Charges  and  Specifications  Submitted  to  the  Presbytery,  Novem- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  341 

ber  9,  1892.  III.  The  Preliminary  Objections  of  Professor 
Briggs  to  the  Amended  Charges  and  Specifications,  November  9, 

1892.  IV.  The  Action  of  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  on  these 

PreHminary  Objections;   and  the  Complaint  of  Professor  Briggs 

to  the  Synod  of  New  York.     V.  The  Evidence  Submitted  by 

Professor    Briggs.     VI.  The    Exceptions    Taken    by    Professor 

Briggs  to  the  New  Matter  Introduced  by  the  Prosecution  into 

Their  Argument  in  Rebuttal.     VII.  The  Final  Judgment  of  the 

Presbytery  of  New  York,  December  30,  1892,  and  January  9, 

1893." 

New  York:  Scribner.  February  16,  1893.  Pp.  (3),  161.  P.  8vo.  (Re- 
printed, February,  1893.) 

The  Defence  of  Professor  Briggs  Before  the  General  Assembly. 
The  Case  Against  Professor  Briggs.  Part  III.  I.  The  Appeal 
of  the  so-called  Prosecuting  Committee  to  the  General  Assembly 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America, 
January  18,  1893.  II.  The  Argument  of  Professor  Briggs  Before 
the  General  Assembly  Against  Entertaining  the  Appeal,  May  24 
and  25,  1893.     III.  The  Entertainment  of  the  Appeal,  May  26, 

1893.  IV.  The  Argument  of  Professor  Briggs  before  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  against  sustaining  the  Appeal,  May  29  and  30, 
1893.  V.  The  Action  of  the  General  Assembly  in  Sustaining 
the  Appeal,  May  31,  1893,  and  the  Final  Judgment  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  June  1,  1893. 

New  York:  Scribner.     July  8,  1893.     Pp.  (3),  311.     P.  8vo. 

The  Future  of  Presbyterianism  in  the  United  States. 

In  The  North  American  Review.  Vol.  157,  1893.  Pp.  1-10.  8vo.  New 
York:  North  American  Review. 

The  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch. 

New  York:  Scribner.  January  20,  1893.  Pp.  xii,  259.  P.  8vo.  (New 
and  revised  edition,  April  3,  1897.) 

t     Rally  About  the  Constitution. 
In  The  Evangelist.    June  8,  1893.     New  York:  The  Evangelist  Publishing 
Co.     Reprinted  in  The  Independent.     June  15,  1893.     P.  822,  and  in  Public 
Opinion.     Vol.  15,  1893.     June  24,  1893.     Pp.  279-280. 
The  Truthfulness  of  Holy  Scripture. 

In  "The  World's  Parliament  of  Religions";  John  Henry  Barrows,  Editor. 
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1894 
The  Messiah  of  the  Gospels. 

aew  York:  Scribner.     November  7,  1894.     Pp.  xv,  337.     P.  8vo. 
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n   The  North  American  Review.     Vol.   159,   1894.     Pp.   697-710.     8vo. 
'  York:  North  American  Review. 

The  Sunday  School  and  Modern  Biblical  Criticism. 

In  The  North  American  Review.     Vol.  158,  1894.     Pp.  64-76.     8vo.     New 
York:  North  American  Review. 

1895 
International  Critical  Commentary  on  the  Holy  Scriptures  of 

the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

New   York:    Scribner.     P.  8vo.     1895  ff.     (Co-editor  with   Prof.   S.  R. 
Driver  and  Rev.  Alfred  Plummer.) 

The  Messiah  of  the  Apostles. 

New  York:   Scribner.    April  6,  1895.     Pp.  xv,  562.     P.  8vo. 

1896 
The  International  Theological  Library. 

New  York:    Scribner.     1896  ff.     P.  8vo.     (Co-editor  with  Prof.  S.  D.  F. 
Salmond.) 

Qhe  One  Flock  of  Christ. 

In  The  Reformed  Quarterly  Review.     Vol.  43,  1896.     Pp.  302-317.     8vo. 
Philadelphia:  Reformed  Church  Publication  House. 

1897 
Ecclesiastical  Jurisdiction  in  Its  Relation  to  Church  Unity. 

In  The  New  World.     Vol.  6,  1897.     Pp.  117-143.     8vo.     Boston:   Hough- 
ton, Mifflin  &  Co. 

The  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch.     New  Edition,  re- 
vised and  enlarged. 

New  York:  Scribner.     1897.     Pp.  xii,  288.     P.  8vo. 

(Orders  in  the  Church  of  England.)     A  Review  of  "  The  Letter 

Apostolic  of  His  Holiness  Leo  XIII,"  and  of  "  The  Answer  of  the 

Archbishops  of  England." 

In  The  Critical  Review.     Vol.  7,  1897.     Pp.  387-393.     8vo.     Edinburgh: 
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The  Scope  of  Theology  and  Its  Place  in  the  University. 

In  The  American  Journal  of  Theology.  Vol.  1,  1897.  Pp.  38-70.  8vo. 
Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press. 

A  Study  of  the  Use  of  27  and  227  in  the  Old  Testament. 

In  "Semitic  Studies  in  Memory  of  Rev.  Dr.  Alexander  Kohut."  Berlin: 
Calvary.     1897.     Pp.  94-105.     8vo. 

The  Use  of  ^2^  in  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature.  Vol.  16,  1897.  Pp.  17-30.  8vo. 
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The  Westminster  Assembly. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  49,  1897.  Pp.  1454-1455.  Fol.  New  York: 
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The  Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  Messiah. 

In  The  Expository  Times.  Vols.  8-9,  1896-1898.  Vol.  8:  Pp.  393-398; 
452-455;  492-496.     Vol.  9:   Pp.  69-75.     8vo.     Edinburgh:   Clarke. 

Works  of  Imagination  in  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  North  American  Review.  Vol.  164,  1897.  Pp.  356-373.  8vo. 
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1898 

The  Institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  50,  1898.  Pp.  471-472.  Fol.  New  York: 
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Romance  of  a  Cash-Book  (of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 

of  the  Gospel  in  New  England). 

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1899 

General  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Holy  Scripture.  The 
Principles,  Methods,  History  and  Results  of  Its  Several  Depart- 
ments and  of  the  Whole. 

New  York:  Scribner.     January  14,  1899.     Pp.  xxii,  688.     8vo. 

An  Inductive  Study  of  Selah. 

In  The  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature.  Vol.  18,  1899.  Pp.  132-143., ^8vq^ 
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The  Scientific  Study  of  Holy  Scripture. 
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1900 

The  New  Testament  Doctrine  of  the  Church. 

In  The  American  Journal  of  Theology.  Vol.  4,  1900.  Pp.  1-22.  Svo. 
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The  Present  Crisis  in  the  Church  of  England  and  Its  Bearings 

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The  Use  of  m  in  the  Old  Testament. 

In  The  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature.  Vol.  19,  1900.  Pp.  132-145,  8vo. 
Boston:  Society  of  Biblical  Literature  and  Exegesis. 

1901 
The  Inspiration  of  the  Bible, 

In  "Cornerstones:  Four  Sermons  delivered  under  the  auspices  of  the 
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1902 
The  Apostolic  Commission, 

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Elias  Neau,  the  Confessor  and  Catechist  of  Negro  and  Indian 
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The  Incarnation  of  the  Lord.  A  Series  of  Sermons  Tracing 
the  Unfolding  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  in  the  New 
Testament. 

New  York:  Scribner.    September  13,  1902.     Pp.  xi,  243.     P,  Svo, 

1903 
Catholic — The  Name  and  the  Thing. 

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Problems  of  the  Gospels:  When  Did  Jesus  Begin  His  Ministry  ? 
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1904 
The  Ethical  Teaching  of  Jesus. 
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How  May  We  Become  More  Truly  Catholic? 

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New  Light  on  the  Life  of  Jesus. 

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A  Plea  for  the  Higher  Study  of  Theology. 

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The  Use  of  the  Logia  of  Matthew  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark. 

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1905 
Loisy  and  His  Critics  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

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Reform  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

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1906 

A  Critical  and  Exegetical  Commentary  on  the  Book  of  Psalms. 

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A  Hebrew  and  English  Lexicon  of  the  Old  Testament,  with  an 
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con of  William  Gesenius  as  translated  by  Edward  Robinson, 
late  Professor  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
Edited  with  constant  reference  to  the  Thesaurus  of  Gesenius  as 
completed  by  E.  Rodiger,  and  with  authorized  use  of  the  latest 
German  editions  of  Gesenius'  Handworterbuch  iiber  das  Alte 
Testament,  by  Francis  Brown,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  with  the  co- 
operation of  S.  R.  Driver,  D.D.,  Litt.D.,  and  Charles  A.  Briggs, 
D.D.,  D.Litt.  (Dr.  Briggs  was  chiefly  responsible  for  the  theo- 
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Boston,  New  York,  and  Chicago:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1906.  Pp. 
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The  Papal  Commission  and  the  Pentateuch.     By ,    and 

Baron  Friedrich  Von  Hiigel,  Member  of  the  Cambridge  Philo- 
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London:  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.     1906.     Pp.  64.     Svo. 

1907 

La  Commission  Pontificale  et  le  Pentateuque.  Par  le  Rev- 
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Traduction  autorisee  de  I'original  anglais. 

Paris:  Picard.     1907.     Pp.  78.     8vo. 

The  Great  Obstacle  in  the  Way  of  a  Reunion  of  Christendom. 

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The  New  Encyclical. 

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The  Real  and  the  Ideal  in  the  Papacy. 

In  The  North  American  Review.  Vol.  184,  1907.  Pp.  347-363.  Svo. 
New  York:  North  American  Review. 

1908 
An  Analysis  of  Isaiah  40-62. 

In  "Old  Testament  and  Semitic  Studies  in  Memory  of  William  Rainey 
Harper."     Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press.     1908.     Pp.  67-111. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  347 

The  Encyclical  Against  Modernism. 

In  The  North  American  Review.  Vol.  187,  1908.  Pp.  199-212.  8vo. 
New  York:  North  American  Review. 

The  Virgin  Birth  of  Our  Lord. 

In  The  American  Journal  of  Theology.  Vol.  12,  1908.  Pp.  189-210.  8vo. 
Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press.  Separately  reprinted  with  an  Intro- 
duction by  Wilford  L.  Robbins.  New  York:  Whittaker.  1909.  Pp.  46. 
12mo. 

1909 

Modernism  Mediating  the  Coming  Catholicism. 

In  The  North  American  Review.     Vol.  189,  1909.     Pp.  877-889.     Svo. 
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The  Precedents  of  1610. 

In  The  Independent.  Vol.  66,  1909.  Pp.  96-98.  New  York:  The  Inde- 
pendent. 

Church  Unity:  Studies  of  Its  Most  Important  Problems. 
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